Just got Elite Dangerous

I have it on the Xbox.

I fired it up, tried to work out the controls, managed to find "fire" before finding the engines and the space station defences shot me to ribbons. My inaugural flight was about two feet.

Actually, that's a point. I turned it off in disgust after that because the "tutorial" was a bunch of YouTube videos and I couldn't be bothered. Have they written an actual tutorial yet? I might give it another go if so.

I did but got distracted by something else and not been back on it since, there’s a thread buried somewhere on here.

Thought I was the only person on there. I must be in the wrong bit of space as I never seem to come across another human player. I’ve learnt most of what I know (not that much I suspect) from YouTube and various websites, I don’t think the tutorials have got that much better.

There are in-game tutorials yes.

I found it hard to figure out what all the systems were, but then I didn't sit down with the manual and read it which I probably should have done. I had a couple of confusing sessions then it fell into place and now I'm a bit hooked, in a way that I very rarely am with games.

The progression is pretty good - I'm still Harmless with 30-40 hours and 10-15 kills, so when people try to kill me they are only low ranked also. But I've done loads of missions and traded a fair bit so I've a decent trader rank, I've made money and got decent hardware so I"m not at much risk of being shot to bits.

I just got involved in Power Play, I pledged allegiance to the socialist in the Federation faction who's trying to make the galaxy a better place.

PS my name is molgrips on everything, look me up 🙂

there’s a thread buried somewhere on here.

Yeah it's died of old age tho.

PS my name is molgrips on everything, look me up 🙂

Platform might be useful. I'm assuming there's no crossplay between formats?

I was just googling that. I'm on PS4.

You had to google that you were on a PS4?

No I was googling cross play.

Ah, xbox here.

Dunno if it's considered cheating, but there's a very useful website where you can find the most lucrative trading routes: www.eddb.io
I've been slogging away to get ranked up to Duke in the Imperial Navy, had an Imperial Clipper for a while, great ship but a little light on the firepower. Now in a Type-9 Heavy with maximum cargo space to build some cash for an Imperial Cutter. Depending on where I am in the galaxy I can pull in around 1.7 million per round trip using the above website.

I find it's a great game to just drop into for a few hours and then leave it for days/weeks at a time. Similar to No Man's Sky, which is also very good since the latest updates.

edit: PS4, TheFlyingOx

I played for a while, did all the training missions and thought I was to one..then I started playing the actual game but couldn't find an good route to make money on, so couldn't upgrade anything, couldn't find anyone to pick a fight with...and lost interest

If you want to make money, use the eddb.io website.
If you want to fight, head for conflict zones; there are usually a number of options in most systems. Drop out of supercruise, pick a side and start blasting. Bonus is you can cash in combat bond vouchers for all the kills, similar to collecting bounty from pirate scalps except you're fighting as part of a team rather than on your own.

I feel like eddb is cheating a bit. I've been plying local trade and making 1kCr per unit of cargo if I'm lucky.

My first purchase was a Cobra MkIII and I upgraded it, now I'm in a Keelback which is nearly maxed out and includes a fighter. And since I'm still Harmless it's rather effective, people keep running away and I can't catch them easily.

I was thinking of visiting a combat zone to level up. If you pick a side does that side recognise it and help you out?

couldn’t find an good route to make money on

From what I can tell, actual trading at least at first hardly makes any money. I will sometimes fill my hold on the way back from a mission but I don't trade a lot. Missions seem to be more lucrative, plus as you gain reputation you seem to get more money for them. The best way I've found to make money so far is find a system that's booming and they'll give you boomtime deliveries where you take so many units of something to a nearby system and you can get silly money for it. I'm seeing missions that pay the usual 60-90kCr but some are 500kCr and they aren't any more difficult.

I've got some planetary scan missions to do, but they say they 'may' be illegal. Not sure I want to piss anyone off but it seems that in this game it's largely unavoidable unless you become an explorer.

I just gleefully accepted a courier mission for 2.2mCr, got interdicted and I went to fight but pressed the wrong button and put myself in the fighter. My pilot then just sat there doing nothing whilst taking hits before I could tell her to bloody well fight back and got us destroyed. Why the hell can't I issue a standing order to shoot at anything that is shooting at you?

Missions seem to be more lucrative, plus as you gain reputation you seem to get more money for them.

That's a good point...I did do some missions..I'd completely forgotten that aspect. It's been a while since I played!

Maybe in the impending lockdown I'll have another go 😁

Missions seem to snowball in payment once you start gaining reputation. My tip would be to pick a station with a faction you like, then visit a load of nearby systems and dock. Once you've docked in a system you'll get data on what they have to sell. So when a mission says 'source X units of Y' you can go to the galaxy map and easily bring up where that thing is - assuming it's produced by one of the systems, which seems common.

I just did a load of missions just for the reputation to gain 'friendly' status quickly in a location, and they are offering me silly money.

Cheers...Will have a go (and bookmark this thread!)

I feel like eddb is cheating a bit.

I kinda get this, but I balance that out with the idea that 1300 years into the future where we are technologically capable enough to have spaceships that can cover multiple light years in a matter of seconds there is probably a method of instantly determining what stuff sells for what price in each system.

It needs a dingbat mode for people with no thumbs or patience.

You had to google that you were on a PS4?

This response has has not received the recognition it deserved.

I’ve been playing on X Box for a couple of years. I started playing because I used to have the original Elite on my Acorn Electron, back in the 80’s.

I hit Elite in trading mid last year and have almost hit Elite in exploring (94%). My combat rating is an embarrassing level of Novice though.

I have also progressed through federation naval ranks too. I started on this because I wanted to unlock Sol and fly round the earth and our solar system.

It’s a very time consuming game but ultimately you play it how you want to, which i like. Don’t take any missions to Hutton Orbital unless you have 90 minutes to spare though.

I kinda get this, but I balance that out with the idea that 1300 years into the future where we are technologically capable enough to have spaceships that can cover multiple light years in a matter of seconds there is probably a method of instantly determining what stuff sells for what price in each system.

I get this also. In reality every one of those space stations would have a website and you could google for prices, so the existence of eddb makes up for that deficit. And presumably Frontier have made this data available via an API exactly for this sort of thing, which makes it not cheating really.

Actually, in reality all the data would be made available and you could calculate the optimal trade route stopping in at all the right places to grab outstanding missions to maximise profit. Your ship should be telling you stuff like 'hey there's a mission available here, if you go via there and there you can pick up these goods and make a killing'.

I’m seeing missions that pay the usual 60-90kCr but some are 500kCr and they aren’t any more difficult

If you get allied with certain factions some of the missions can pay up to around 6 million credits. So allying yourself is the key really.

Although I thought 'yay, two million for a courier mission how easy' then I got rinsed by a pirate. That'll teach me to get cocky.

Haven't played this in years but used to use that site a ton to help plan my trade routes, took a lot of planning to find an optimal route that was pirate free and a good income but in the end I was earning millions of credits per run. Although one of the earlier routes was hideous and took around 50 mins of travel, not efficient money making.

Used to watch some youtube vids for this and their idea was earn your money trading, fastest and easiest method, once you get there store your cargo ship, max out your combat ship and go hunting xD

Whats it like on the PS4? I used to play this on the PC and it was truly beautiful.

Whats it like on the PS4? I used to play this on the PC and it was truly beautiful.

Have you seen Picard? It looks like the flying scenes on that, I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.

Have you seen Picard?

Its on the list to watch, just haven't got round to it yet. Think i'll wait for my next PC build to take it up again.

Whats it like on the PS4?

I haven't seen it on other platforms, but it still looks stunning on PS4. Of course most of it is just black with twinkly bits, but that's not the game's fault. I much prefer that to the wishy washy pastel pink unrealistic universe of No Man's Sky. The graphics that there are - the space stations and other settlements - are incredibly detailed and huge. They really are amazing. And if the Earth-like worlds don't inspire a bit of awe then you really are a jaded cynic :). On the ring space stations you can fly up close to the orbital bit and look inside through the glass roof - they're full of parkland, trees, houses and stuff. For me that's proper scifi stuff.

Supposedly towards the end of this year we're getting the ability to get out of your ship and walk around the space stations which will be full of people and things to do; also the ability to fly on the atmospheric planets which will be populated with cities that you can visit. If this happens, I think I might get a bit excited, to say the least. The full realisation of a childhood fantasy.

Well I’m reinstalling it to take take a look.

It got a big upgrade on the PS4 about a year ago. Lots of new content and as far as I'm aware, an ongoing war with the Thargoids.
I say 'as far as I'm aware', because about this time last year I joined a mass expedition to Beagle Point at the other side of the galaxy. I fell behind the rest of the 1000 strong PS4 players (around 12,000 players in total across all platforms), in the expedition quite rapidly, because of a few rather spectacular red wine induced mishaps, then I left the PS4 over the summer, and only came back to it this winter.
Everyone else has finished the expedition (Distant Worlds 2), but I persevered, only to smack into a few more planets while attempting to land under the influence.
I'm still going, about 2/3rds of the way to Beagle point, with a promise to myself that I'm not lowering my landing gear again till I get back to civilisation.
I enjoy the game simply because it's a way of relaxing for me. I just fly, have a drink of wine and explore, fly, drink wine and explore. Nothing shoots at me, nothing challenges me, but the graphics are pretty.
I'll get back to 'the bubble' one day, and boy, I'll be rich with all the exploration data I've gathered, but till then, I'll just fly...

I like this idea - my wife plays games like this.. she loves that kind of repetitive calm job - Minecraft is her most played game. I don't mind grind but only when there's an aim - e.g. saving up for the next ship etc. I'll do exploration one day but not yet. Plus I cannot figure out how to work the discovery scanner properly.

I fell behind the rest of the 1000 strong PS4 players (around 12,000 players in total across all platforms)

How does that work? I didn't think you could cross-play?

Funnily enough I just picked it back up.

I'm on Xbox CMDR RichMTB77.

I've mainly been exploring, I've reached Elite for exploration. My daily driver is an Asp Explorer with a load of engineering. It can jump about 60ly.

If you've got patience exploring is a great way to pull in credits and quite a chilled out way of playing in general. I've been to Colonia, Sag A* and just out to random nebulae and back. My last exploration trip netted me about 100 million credits

I've also got a Python for trading and general purpose missions, I might fit it out for mining at some point and give that a go. I've got an Alliance Cheiftain for bounty hunting and elimination missions but I've still got a pretty low combat rank.

Overall its a pretty fun game but definitely not something you can just pick up and play. I think it took me about a week to master docking at a space station and I still sometimes make a total arse of it.

I must have been living under an Apex Legends Season 4 rock. What is it and should i be playing it?

My daily driver is an Asp Explorer with a load of engineering. It can jump about 60ly.

It can jump 60Ly in one hop? If so I might have to try exploring like this whilst I am still low combat ranked. What's the best cheap ship for exploration? Presumably you have to configure it for such with FSD upgrades etc?

What is it and should i be playing it?

What is Elite Dangerous? It's the original space sim, where the galaxy is a bit Wild West.. Involved, quite complex and very open ended. If you want realism, it's here. I think that once you've worked it out, and there is a learning curve, you can just pick up and play as long as you don't leave any missions outstanding when you stop, because the galaxy operates in real time. When you're given a day to complete a mission it means 24 actual real life hours.

ahh its that one that has been around for ages, like 30 years or something? Ok, i may..... continue to give it a miss....

Yes that one, but the game has obviously moved on quite a lot since the days of 48K Spectrums.

I'm currently helping to bring socialism and liberal values to parts of the galaxy by working for the Federation shadow president delivering aid, whilst also trying to gain money by currying favour with a local faction in a particular system, even if that does mean some dirty work because it's all for the cause..... it's more than buy low sell high these days.

ahh its that one that has been around for ages, like 30 years or something?

No, that's Elite you're thinking of.

Elite came out on the BBC in the mid-80s, hotly followed by a bunch of ports and sequels of varying quality. Elite Dangerous is a modern sequel that was Kickstartered five years or so back for PC and modern consoles.

(... personally I think the genre peaked with Freespace. That's never been bettered, I would love a modern remake of that.)

It can jump 60Ly in one hop? If so I might have to try exploring like this whilst I am still low combat ranked. What’s the best cheap ship for exploration? Presumably you have to configure it for such with FSD upgrades etc?

Yeah 60ly in one jump but thats with the Guardian FSD Booster and an engineered Frame Shift Drive - these are only available if you have the Horizon upgrade.

The Cobra MkIII makes a pretty good cheap exploration ship and can be converted to other roles too. You need an A rated FSD and then D rated everything else. You also need a Fuel Scoop an Advanced Discovery Scanner and Surface Scanner. Ditch everything else, no weapons, there is no-one to fight. Some people ditch the shield too but it gives you a bit of added safety margin for crap docking when you want to return from your trip. You should be able to get a 20+ ly without engineering.

Once you have done a few trips outside the bubble you can get yourself an Asp Explorer, then the galaxy is your oyster!

@Molgrips

Sorry, you're right of course, you can't play across platforms, but the expedition was organised, and route planned so that everyone was going in roughly the same direction at roughly the same time. Players could chat and interact via the Discord app across platforms, or as part of a 'squadron' within platforms. It felt like a really big, really cool, community project. I think I'm right in saying that the game designers even added a partially constructed space station at Sag A*, to tie in with part of the expedition's aim to mine and ferry construction materials out to the station.

At the very least, I'm glad that station is there, because every time I smack into a planet, I've ended up back there!

I’ve sunk a couple of hundred hours into Elite Dangerous on the PC and have enjoyed it from time to time. Haven’t played on it in a while however. I really enjoyed the deep core mining but in the most recent update they seemed to nerf it quite a bit from what I can gather. Shame really as I enjoyed spending an hour or two mining valuable gems/minerals and then hooning across the galaxy with several million credits in the hold while trying not to get shot at by pirates.

Ended up with several ships in various states of being engineered (Anaconda, Vulture, Asp Explorer, Krait Phantom, some Alliance ship that is epic in fights when engineered) and elite ranks in trading and exploration.

Play this on and off, on pc its pretty immersive when using vr. I used to have it set up for voice commands using a program called voice attack so a lot of sub systems could be engaged by just talking into the mic but ive since reformatted the pc and it was a pain in the ass to set up first time around,

Well all reinstalled and I can’t remember any of the controls. 😂

I hear you can make a lot of money transporting paper pulp to Covid-19

😂

Well I just went to hit R2 to power up my engine which of course is to fire lasers, so I’m now 600K down as I had to buy a new ship. 😂

See my first post on the previous page. (-:

Hah yes I keep doing that sort of thing. Shot to bits whilst pressing the wrong button.

I might invest in a HOTAS if I can find a way to make it work from the sofa.

Pressing boost instead of deploying landing gear while docking is my favorite. Especially when you boost into another ship and the space station defenses frag your ass for flying like a dick.

Yup that’s happened when I last played

I don't play it, never have. But I'd like everyone to get involved.

PS buy shares in Frontier Development.

Why are you lot docking manually?

Why are you lot docking manually?

I enjoy it unless I get it wrong.

Time consuming innit.

So I got shot to bits again last night doing a delivery mission just one above my trade rating. I'm using a Keelback with a SLF and I didn't have enough time to launch the damn thing before my shields were gone.

What did I do wrong? Do I simply not have enough shields (4B)? Or am I just crap? In my haste to launch the fighter I didn't drop any chaff, but I actually don't know for sure what weapons he was using. Problem is it cost me 300kCr to replace my ship so I can't keep trying it out.

Generally I just avoid interdiction. Sometimes I look at the data of who is attacking and if they're low level then I'll have a scrap otherwise I avoid it and finish the mission.

When it comes to fighting are you managing the power pips? Adjusting them according to what you need? (Power to weapons, power to engine to chase down/run, power to systems to bring shields back). You could also equip a shield booster to strengthen shields, they consume a bit of power but you can adjust things in the power control panel as to what has priorities and what doesn't.

I usually avoid with ease, but this time on the second cargo run of the mission I only got a few seconds to try to hit the evasion target and it smacked me right out of cruise anyway. I think it felt I needed some obstacle to overcome to complete the mission.

Even the biggest shield booster only gives 25% boost, which doesn't seem like much when he seems to be taking out my shields in seconds. First thing I did was go for my fighter which just took too long.

Just reading up online, and it seems that you can still see potential attackers on your scanner and evade them before they get the chance to interdict you; and you can target them whilst in cruise and also during interdiction. I hadn't realised this.

I still thing it ridiculous that you cannot set fighter crew to scramble when attacked. I mean we're being attacked, don't just sit there and wait for orders FFS! Show some initiative!

Fighter crews!? When I was playing I had none of this, very curious to return now and see whats changed.

Check out Vindicator Jones on YouTube, he does some good combat tutorials in various ships.

One of the best combat things I learned was to hit boost straight after being pulled from supercruise and push the upward thrusters to max. It puts all the boost energy into the upward thrusters and spins the ship so you're facing the attacker, then open fire. Need to have high rated thrusters for it to work really well, engineered ones are hilarious fun.

Probably easier said than done however as I was using a HOTAS rather than a pad. Did play it for a while on PS4 but kept boosting into stations due to pressing the wrong button so gave up.

Fighter crews!? When I was playing I had none of this, very curious to return now and see whats changed.

You can have NPCs to fly fighters for you; but you can also get real people to crew your ship and man person the turrets etc Milennium Falcon style.

Well a mission and commodities run and I soon got my credits back from my mishap.

My first purchase was a Cobra MkIII and I upgraded it, now I’m in a Keelback

Get back in your cobra, best all round ship til you get to python/krait level, aspX isn't a bad stop gap tho, but bear in mind it's got terrible braking. DBX explorer if you want to go, erm.... exploring.

With practice you can dodge npc interdictions fairly easily, if you play in open there's tactics to avoid them & maybe get away, but you need to accept you're still going to get wasted by murder hobos - but not too often if you're careful.

Engineers & guardian stuff can massively enhance your ship, but the grind may ruin the game for you. TBH a lot of elite can be grind-y, so try not to get sucked into it, stick to stuff you enjoy.

Auto-dock lessens accidents (still crashed on occasion a while back, dunno if it's better now) but manual docking is faster once you get the hang of it.

1300 years in the future, FSD drives, pew pew and railgun weapons but we still cant manually force a reload our kinetic weapons!

Get back in your cobra

But.. with a SRV it only has 24T capacity or something, half that of the Keelback. I want to make the Keelback work - apparently, a lot do according to the internet. I just need to crack it. I got it cos it can take a SLF but the difficulties in launching the damn things seem to be holding back the idea.

I think next time I will keep an eye out for pursuers. I get the piratical message on the system chat, so I'll scan from cruise to see who's following me then drop out, launch the SLF and try and be ready.

This game sounds right up my street; is it worth buying a hard copy, or better to download from the PS store? Cheers 👍🏼

Makes no odds except for the fact that if you have a hard copy and want to play you have to get up and put the disk in.

Look me up, I can help with the confusing control system if you need it 🙂

is it worth buying a hard copy, or better to download from the PS store?

Whichever's cheapest. Looks to be £18 used on CEX (dunno if new retail comes with extra DLC or anything?)

In Team Green world, buying on the console is usually the most expensive way of getting games, unless it's on offer.

Thanks chaps, Molly, will do 👍🏼