Elite: Dangerous - Anyone Out there?

[FlorbFnarb 535]

13 hours ago, Unavailebow said:

More sim than RPG, as Elite (older games) were. That's why they always tell you to go VR, I guess you already found out why.

Oh yeah.  I still hope for them to add an FPS MMORPG element to it so I can land at a hive of scum and villainy and negotiate with this old monk, the farmboy, and his two robots for immediate passage off the planet, no Imperial connections.

[Unavailebow 107]

5 Billion for a fleet carrier... Does that mean

If I sell all my ship I can afford an empty carrier 

[Unavailebow 107]

Occupied by real life, looked at Odyssey, might go for it.

Still alive? @FlorbFnarb

[FlorbFnarb 535]

On 6/8/2020 at 10:39 AM, Unavailebow said:

Occupied by real life, looked at Odyssey, might go for it.

Still alive? @FlorbFnarb

Just about to log in myself after a long hiatus.  Computer was taken apart for a long while, remodeling being done in the computer room.

From what I'm hearing fleet carriers might not be worth the 5 hojillion space-dollars they cost, and I don't know about this Odyssey thing.  Supposedly might not be VR compatible at first, which is really gonna bake my cookies if that's true.

[Wanderjar 297]

but the real shock is the nerf to resource profits :/

[FlorbFnarb 535]

5 hours ago, Wanderjar said:

but the real shock is the nerf to resource profits :/

Wait, what?  Trading gives less profit now?

[Wanderjar 297]

Go resource mining and you'll see what I mean. 14% is a gold mine now

[FlorbFnarb 535]

Are you talking about deep core mining or like looking for Selenium or something?

[Wanderjar 297]

diamonds/opals etc. they nerfed the 'hot spot' mechanic pretty hard, though i dont know the last time you played
normal/engineering stuff is still as common as ever

[FlorbFnarb 535]

15 minutes ago, Wanderjar said:

diamonds/opals etc. they nerfed the 'hot spot' mechanic pretty hard, though i dont know the last time you played
normal/engineering stuff is still as common as ever

Ah, ok.  That's awful.  It's been several months since I played; the computer spent a few months disassembled while we did some remodeling, and before that I had been playing some DCS.

So they brought in fleet carriers at 5 billion a pop, then nerf the best way to make money?  Brilliant.

[FlorbFnarb 535]

Good God I hate material gathering.  I always head out to HIP 36601 and Outotz LS-K D8-3 to do it, and it's still dull, dull, dull.

[FlorbFnarb 535]

Just sold 512 tons of painite for like 460 million space dollars.  Money is absurdly easy to make in this game; unfortunately materials are still a huge grind.

[FlorbFnarb 535]

I made a spreadsheet to calculate the opportunity cost of selling all your mining cargo (painite, whatever) in-system to a fleet carrier versus selling some of it in-system but selling as much as you can (up to 25% of demand) wherever the commodity commands the highest prices.

You only have to supply four piece of information:

1. The size of your load of cargo
2. The price carriers in-system are offering
3. The price offered by whatever system is paying the most
4. The demand in that system

The spreadsheet calculates 25% of the demand, calculates that many tons as sold at the top dollar price, and figures the rest of it as sold in-system to a carrier at the carrier's price.  It tells you how much extra money you make by making the trip, and how many tons of ore that equals to at the price offered by the carriers in-system.

That way if you know the trip to sell takes you X minutes and the increased profit is worth Y tons of ore, if you Y is more tons of ore than you can mine in X minutes, go ahead and make the trip.  If you can mine more than Y tons of ore in X minutes, the trip is a waste of your time; you'd make more money just selling it all to a carrier and getting right back in the ring.  If you mine exactly Y tons in X minutes, it's a wash.

 

Link to the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uGYbzALUGlufWpBdcU3jDGxW-BVhA8sB17LBkLqeos8/edit?usp=sharing

 

Make a copy and clear out my example data in the shaded boxes; leave everything else alone, that's where the formulas are.

[Unavailebow 107]

Even tho I have zero demand on credits because haha fleet carrier is a pet and I don't need it but I'd save the chart for the future.

-sitting in a corner waiting for new content-

[FlorbFnarb 535]

8 hours ago, Unavailebow said:

Even tho I have zero demand on credits because haha fleet carrier is a pet and I don't need it but I'd save the chart for the future.

-sitting in a corner waiting for new content-

I'm not even entirely sure I want to bother with a fleet carrier.  The only purpose I can think of for them is (1) buying and selling painite, and (2) making my trips out to HIP 36601 easier.

[Unavailebow 107]

On 11/5/2020 at 9:16 AM, FlorbFnarb said:

I'm not even entirely sure I want to bother with a fleet carrier.  The only purpose I can think of for them is (1) buying and selling painite, and (2) making my trips out to HIP 36601 easier.

I haven't done calucations but in my head, it makes journeys slower as you have to maintain it not like a ship.

It is safer tho, if you are into life-risking explorations

[FlorbFnarb 535]

12 hours ago, Unavailebow said:

I haven't done calucations but in my head, it makes journeys slower as you have to maintain it not like a ship.

It is safer tho, if you are into life-risking explorations

Yeah, it takes like 20 minutes per jump.  I think people have said this amounts to some ridiculous amount of time to get across the galaxy compared to regular ships...but at 500 LY I wouldn't actually have to sit and fly the whole trip out to HIP 36601, I could just schedule a jump, come back in 20 minutes, make another, etc., about four times and then be there.

Takes a little longer, but I fucking hate flying the trip out there.  Something like 32 jumps with a ~60LY AspX, long enough for me to get sick of it, and then I have the mind-numbing experience of zapping crystal spires over and over to pick up materials.  Anything that exchanges that for me just making a handful of jumps is welcome, even if it takes a little longer.

[punishersal 292]

Decided to finally give this a try. Aaaaaand I somehow rushed and left Imperial Systems too soon or Iam missing a lot of info on game mechanics. I have been wandering around several nearly empty systems until I reached one of nearest high security systems, but missions there are way above my rank.

Mining as source of income is also still secret because mined ore in tutorial mission just says "nope" when I try to cargo scoop it. (EDIT:figured it out)

In short I understand nothing so far  

[FlorbFnarb 535]

On 11/12/2020 at 3:55 PM, punishersal said:

Decided to finally give this a try. Aaaaaand I somehow rushed and left Imperial Systems too soon or Iam missing a lot of info on game mechanics. I have been wandering around several nearly empty systems until I reached one of nearest high security systems, but missions there are way above my rank.

Mining as source of income is also still secret because mined ore in tutorial mission just says "nope" when I try to cargo scoop it. (EDIT:figured it out)

In short I understand nothing so far  

There's a ton of stuff to learn, but if you're still in the starting Sidewinder, take stuff like data courier missions until you get the $$$ for a Cobra III.  Definitely do *all* the tutorial missions, though.  They help you understand some of the basic stuff.

What controls are you using?  Mouse and keyboard, game controller, or HOTAS?

[FlorbFnarb 535]

On 11/12/2020 at 3:55 PM, punishersal said:

Decided to finally give this a try. Aaaaaand I somehow rushed and left Imperial Systems too soon or Iam missing a lot of info on game mechanics. I have been wandering around several nearly empty systems until I reached one of nearest high security systems, but missions there are way above my rank.

Mining as source of income is also still secret because mined ore in tutorial mission just says "nope" when I try to cargo scoop it. (EDIT:figured it out)

In short I understand nothing so far  

Man, where to start with the tips?

1. Never fly without a rebuy.  Meaning, never run on the ragged edge of no money in the bank; if you die, you have to be able to pay 5% (I think) of the price of your ship and all its modules and you get it back; if you don't have that cash, you lose that ship.  If your ship is worth a million credits, you want to have say five million in the bank at least.
2. Don't fly paper airplanes once you start getting into bigger ships.  If you fly some cargo ship, don't skip the shield and better thrusters and such just to save money, or somebody might find you and paste you.
3. I've only ever played in Open.  It isn't nearly as dangerous as some claim; I think I've died a grand total of six times or so over the past 2+ years I've been playing.
4. Never sell a ship.  Almost all of them are fun and worth keeping.
5. Outfitting properly is critical, but before long you'll have to get into engineering.  Don't worry about engineering just yet though.
6. Right now, fly data courier missions for early cash.
7. The game is insanely fun in VR.

[punishersal 292]

Im on keyboard and mouse. I have xbox one controller but I dont think its going to be better choice. Playing only in Open. And a little bit more progress 

When I had Sidewinder (bought Eagle Mk.III yesterday), I did some courier missions but they all had, imo, low pay. Did few criminal hunting. Not much fun with tiny lasers as enemy shield kept recharging several times .This slow pace of game is kinda cool yet sometimes a bit frustrating due to flying around system. 

Trying mining now, but Abrasion blaster and SSD missile somehow didn't do anything or I just used them incorrectly.

Everyone seems to recommend Cobra. If its that good then I will switch to it.

[FlorbFnarb 535]

I started out with an Xbox controller and it does surprisingly well.  Eventually pulled my old Saitek X45 out of storage.

Bounty hunting can be fun but it isn't the way to make money; the game's methods of making money are horribly unbalanced.

The abrasion blaster is for deep core mining only, which is its own sort of deal.  Right now the pulse wave scanner you need is busted (bug in the game that likely won't be fixed until the next big update coming around Christmas) so deep core mining isn't the way to go.

 

How much money do you have total?  Let me know what I'm looking at here.  You can buy and fully kit out a Cobra III for laser mining with only 4.85 million astro-dollars, with say another 1-1.5 mil for rebuys: https://is.gd/8hinQN

That build gets you plenty of cargo space, a shield to protect against bumps and scrapes, and A-rated thrusters and FSD to get you where you want to go - as well as an A-rated distributor to power those mining lasers.  You could put two medium mining lasers in the medium weapons spots, but you don't have the collector limpets to keep up with them.

 

Man, there's a ton to describe about mining.  When might you get on later tonight?  I can meet you somewhere and show you some tricks about mining, as well as where to sell your stuff in-system for a good profit.  There's one system currently where you can sell painite for 958,173 per ton, but you can sell to player-owned carriers in-system for 715,960 without having to travel.

[FlorbFnarb 535]

12 hours ago, punishersal said:

Im on keyboard and mouse. I have xbox one controller but I dont think its going to be better choice. Playing only in Open. And a little bit more progress 

When I had Sidewinder (bought Eagle Mk.III yesterday), I did some courier missions but they all had, imo, low pay. Did few criminal hunting. Not much fun with tiny lasers as enemy shield kept recharging several times .This slow pace of game is kinda cool yet sometimes a bit frustrating due to flying around system. 

Trying mining now, but Abrasion blaster and SSD missile somehow didn't do anything or I just used them incorrectly.

Everyone seems to recommend Cobra. If its that good then I will switch to it.

Okay, here's a few resources you'll want to check out:

1. A guy named Exigeous has a YouTube channel that gives REALLY good and brief tutorials on things.  Unlike most channels, you don't have to sit through a half hour explainer video to understand something, he can give it to you briefly, often enough in just a few minutes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0Rwxz4318EEQGHz_z58nVA
2. Inara is a very versatile website that can tell you anything from where to find discounted prices on ships and modules to the best place to sell something.  https://inara.cz/
3. EDSY (Elite Dangerous Ship Yard) is the better ship-building website: https://edsy.org/
4. You can also use Coriolis https://coriolis.io/ but I prefer EDSY.

 

[punishersal 292]

Due to your suggestion, I bought Cobra. (Maybe I have played a little bit too much this weekend) And damn, its totally new perspective. I immediately increased cargo space for those rocks, while still having semi-frustrating experience of mining->scooping. But it opened chance to do real cargo missions. I already flew few 200k missions. I decided to ignore recommended rank and just accept as long as I can fit delivery in my cargo space. Iam about 500k now and Cobra is kinda a bit more upgraded.

"Only 4,85 million" is still like crazy much for me atm  Those 200k missions seemed like goldmine comparing to what I could earn with Eagle and Sidewinder.

Its real nice for you to offer meeting in game, but looks like we would have crazy time zone difference as your player info says NA 

[FlorbFnarb 535]

Ah, Latvia - didn't think about that.  In that case, look up a guy named Yamiks, he's one of your fellow countrymen:  https://www.youtube.com/user/TheYamiks  Yamiks is pretty funny, kinda over the top.

Our time zone difference would be pretty steep, you're seven hours ahead of me, but if you want I could meet you sometime on a Sunday possibly.  If you stay up late to play, midnight your time is 5 PM my time.  I can often get on some time just after noon my time on Sundays, so that would be 7 PM for you.  Hit me up if you need a hand.

The Cobra III is a sweet ship.  It really does do about everything well.  There are better small combat ships, especially the Vulture, but the Cobra is a real bargain.

If you're looking to make money fast, you can take that Cobra layout for a laser miner and run it; a cargo hold of 32 tons will get you 22 million if you mine painite - painite sells at around 715,000 per ton, minimum, sometimes more.