Elite: Dangerous

[jains15]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Njiri. About three jumps away from Aerial on the 5 Port rares run above. Funnily enough, right next door to an anarchy system with a nav point as well,. worked out well, can just switch to a trade run when needed.

The D2's sound incredible as well. As does the cobra in general.

Edited by jains15 on Sunday 4th January 19:40

[jains15]

RizzoTheRat said:

What am I failing to understand when it comes to combat?

I've just bought myself a Viper, kitted it out with a pair of gimballed Burst Lasers, and a pair of turreted Fragmentation Cannon. My intent being to use the lasers to strip shields and then the cannon on the hull.

Gosh where to start? First off I wouldn't shell out for turrets on anything below a Cobra, the viper is one of the most pointy ships in the game so take advantage of fixed weapons with higher fire power where possible. Keep your lasers fixed as you don't need to lead the target with them they are instant hit.

My viper had fixed beams and gimballed cannons which worked very well. The turret is like armour plating on a lotus Elise! You can tell your turrets to fire straight via the right hand menu screen.

The cutting out is probably a thermal problem, make sure you have a pip in WEP, so they stay cooler. If not, upgrade the power distributor and then the power plant, stick to that order the PD is best bang for buck upgrade you can do.

Edited by jains15 on Sunday 4th January 19:45

[Baron Greenback]

jains15 said:

Njiri.
The D2's sound incredible as well. As does the cobra in general.

Edited by jains15 on Sunday 4th January 19:40

Drat they are 170LY away from me! Too far just for a weapon, oh well keep on hunting! Ta!
Edit! mmm its an empire station, think I'll hunt in the empire stations now!

[Baron Greenback]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Ouch! I was just about to sort of set off! It wont allow me to auto shortest route there automatically was going to wing it to halfway there! i'll go back to bounty hunting got to turn off game as back to work after almost a month off!

[RizzoTheRat]

jains15 said:

Gosh where to start? First off I wouldn't shell out for turrets on anything below a Cobra, the viper is one of the most pointy ships in the game so take advantage of fixed weapons with higher fire power where possible. Keep your lasers fixed as you don't need to lead the target with them they are instant hit.

My viper had fixed beams and gimballed cannons which worked very well. The turret is like armour plating on a lotus Elise! You can tell your turrets to fire straight via the right hand menu screen.

The cutting out is probably a thermal problem, make sure you have a pip in WEP, so they stay cooler. If not, upgrade the power distributor and then the power plant, stick to that order the PD is best bang for buck upgrade you can do.

Edited by jains15 on Sunday 4th January 19:45

Thanks, I was assuming any overheat would be the ship overheating, is there a separate marker for the weapon temperature? I've reequipped it with a pair of G1 pulse lasers and a pair of F2 multi-cannon. Time to see if I can do better with this...

[Baron Greenback]

Found a F2 Multi cannon but its Turreted at 1.2mil CR! Has anyone been using a plasma accelerator, know they are power hungry!?

[nick heppinstall]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Put a couple on my cobra earlier. Great fun !

[jains15]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

ooops, didn't know that could happen, I definitely bought from there

So one for the sci-fi geeks out-there;
The inside of the big stations, really reminds me of my imagining of the inside of Rama from Arthur C. Clarke's 'Rendezvous with Rama'.
The light strips every 120 degrees plus the spike at the far end and flying butresses... dunno just thought of it and hope someone knows what I am talking about...

[JustinF]

I've lost sooo many credits today almost getting blown up in my Asp, totally got my ass handed to me by an NPC 'conda, I was on 38% hull no shields and desperately trying to mix max systems and max engines to boost to a distance where I could jump, only to disciver that I'd failed on the keybindings for voice attack and the HCS addon, every time I tried to SC it deployed my weapons, NOT what I bloody needed at 38% hull with zero shields and an elite annaconda bearing down on me!

Voice attack is however bloody awesome! 'Power to engines' 'Boost' Power to systems' all great fun and really lets you keep the combat critical stuff on the HOTAS

This however it is my first combat using it and it's not going well and I need to get the hell out of dodge! I descend into panic for a while in the menu's trying to work out wtf is preventing me going to SC...TAKING DAMAGE...'Boost' 'Power to systems' fiddle about with modules in right menu knocking stuff offline, 'Supercruise' every time I try to SC it deploys my hardpoints, preventing the drive from engaging...
Canopy destroyed.... 25 minutes oxygen remaining (thank F&*k for a5 life support)
I'm fiddling with menu's, turning excess power consuming items off, repair not running but thrusters at 5% health,

why oh why won't you repair them?

maybe that's the fault?

stop them, restart them?

TAKING DAMAGE

arrghhh

'Boost!'

~insuffucient charge~

yank the joystick into a spiral

'Power to engines!'

TAKING DAMAGE

'Boost'

'Power to systems!'

quick fumble with the keys in the left panel and I get a target locked and engage SC, 8 mins left on the oxygen supply, gonna make it despite 3% on the hull remaining, spend the time cruising back to port wondering if an insurance claim will be cheaper than a repair once I've sold the cargo...

1.4 Ls to go, almost there...


~Interdiction......

(asshole!)


I've got a ticking clock, I can ill afford a mini game and successful interdiction will likely cost me my remaing hull before I get to fight, so I meekly throttle down to accept the interdiction.

'Power to shields!'

'Boost'

'Power to engines'

let it tick 3-4 secs

~under attack~

miraculously still 3% hull

'Boost'

'Power to shields'

I've learnt from the early control issues and dive into the left panel and select the nearest port and supercruise.

After the most careful dock with all pips to systems I sell the cargo and happily realise that a repair is about 20% of the insurance.


It's rare moments like these, between the dull grinds and the transport missions that really breathe life into this game

Edited by JustinF on Monday 5th January 00:18

Edited by JustinF on Monday 5th January 00:24

[CharlieCrocodile]

Here's the Lave - Fujin run complete with Cobra loadout & timings - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RitrGeA_1j... (not mine)

[RizzoTheRat]

Is there much variation in what equipment is available in stations by the systems specialisation? I've just gone to a high tech system (Panoi) and they had a better selection of shield generators than the previous system I visited, but no lasers.

[grenpayne]

Well done Justin on escaping, I've had a few moments of sheer panic too with (as mentioned earlier) 'all the composure of a cat in a bath' when I've realised I've entered a fight I cannot hope to win

I've moved on to BH now pretty much full time as I had had enough of trading and have a well kitted out Cobra. The fixed mount pulse lasers and D2 multi-cannons are working well together but I found that an A rated power distributor and B rated shield upgrade have made a massive difference to how well I can fight.

I've also had my first experience of trying to be rammed by an NPC in an Asp, I had him on the ropes quite quickly but was extremely surprised when he just came at me. I just about got out the way (although he did clip me) causing a few pc of hull damage.

I'm currently knocking around Aulin any suggestions as to where I should go next for a bit more BH and possibly picking up some decent contracts?

Edited by grenpayne on Monday 5th January 09:40

[DMN]

The only adivce I can give for BH'ing (for what little its woth), is as I said before. Choose a system 6/7 jumps away and after each jump head to the Nav Beacon and await the bounties. Then when you've got enough to cash in (10,000 minimum for me) head to the nearest space port in the system and cash in the bounties, repair and re-arm and then jump to the next system on the way to your chosen destination.

I've tried hanging out at mining locations for Pirates, but the ones I've been too are dead of even miners.

[motorizer]

I always bounty hunt at extraction sites, purely because it is cooler, and more fun, to dogfight in an asteroid belt.

[PhilboSE]

Well, I've put some serious hours into this over the xmas period, much to the disgust of my wife.

Progress in the early days was extremely slow, hampered by the near-vertical learning curve of the game and the fact I started out in the back end of nowhere without the jump ability to get near any rares. After much grinding and eventually getting on to the Lave-Fujin run netting around 1,500,000Cr each round trip with a Cobra, I've now got a decent ship (about 10,000,000 asset value).

I do think the game punishes too much, too early. Salvaging cargo is utterly pointless; I grabbed some Rare Art that was floating in space, thought it might be worth taking the fine for...unfortunately not, here's a 76,000Cr fine for stuff worth about 10,000Cr. That hurts when you are only netting about 10,000Cr each trading run.

I'm also now getting very bored with the grind of judging the jump out of supercruise, it should be possible for experienced players to jump out more abruptly and still hit target.

Docking & landing is not hard but it's boring. Too many times I've stuffed my ship by trying to shave seconds off the process. When you've got all of your assets tied up in your cargo this can cost you several days' play for one small mistake. I've also been hit head-on coming out of a couple of stations by a Type 9 running with no lights - practically impossible to see until it's too late.

My biggest gripe - lasers on turrets are completely pointless. Every single time I have tried them they have ended up shooting innocents as they fail to lock on to the target and fire at will. This immediately makes you Wanted and turns a 1-on-1 into a 4-on-1, causing you to abandon the kill and turn tail to the nearest station and pay the fines.

I've been somewhat addicted to this but I must admit my interest is beginning to wane. I find myself spending too much time tracking down USS's to find pirates (just to find out after 5 mins supercruise and slowdown that they are a wedding barge or funeral troop), or grinding between planets. In the original Elite you could just jump into an Anarchy system and make merry havoc with pirates, that was much more fun...

I've managed to get to Senior Petty Officer with the Federation but they are now unilaterally Hostile to me (thanks to the beam turrets) with seemingly no way back...

[br d]

Ho do you add to that Wiki? Do you have to go in and manually enter all those lines and bits and bobs?

[PhilboSE]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

That's the "safe" way, but it's pretty slow. My faster technique is to increase speed until I am 0.06 from target, then throttle down keeping the time as a constant 0.06s. Using this approach the "speed" bar approaches the safe blue zone faster than the "distance" bar closes. When the "speed" bar is in the safe blue zone, I increase speed to keep it in the blue zone at about 900Mm/s. This closes the final distance more quickly and then as soon as safe docking is enabled, hit the jump out of supercruise. Unfortunately any misjudgement tends to result in an overshoot and the "loop of shame" to get the target back in the sights. It saves time on the default method but it's still pretty mechanical and boring. Conversely I now always use a docking computer as I can just approach the station, throttle down and go and make a cup of tea.

[PhilboSE]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Interestingly, I dug out Freelancer a few months ago and played that through again. It still stands up after a decade. The best bit of that game was when the storyline was finished and you had freedom within the galaxy - Elite could learn a few things from Freelancer in terms of variety for space travel - even if it isn't the ultra-realism that Elite goes for.

I think that without fundamentally changing the Elite game mechanics some of the grind could be greatly reduced. Not having the same old visuals for every single system jump would be the first thing - I'm getting pretty bored of seeing/hearing the same sequence of the 4..3..2..1 countdown, followed by the "blue streaks" as you enter the jump then the same old interspacial sequence. Also not quite sure why they always land you facing the sun either...

So, speeding up (or losing completely) the hyperjump sequence and allow a faster throttling down out of supercruise would reduce much of the boredom factor for me. I'd also like some bounty hunting missions somewhere in between the piss-easy "kill 5 sidewinders in system X for 10,000Cr" and "Kill fred bloggs for 150,000Cr who happens to be an Elite anaconda toting a battery of military specification lasers".

[PhilboSE]

Anyone got any good tips for smuggling (well, salvaging actually) without attracting massive fines? I found 5 canisters of Platinum which was too good to pass up...except that it attracted a 100,000Cr fine at the next station. I tried coasting through the gate dumping a heat sink, rigged for silent running and with no lights, but they still saw me coming.

[motorizer]

The hyperjump is basically hiding the loading screen, same with the lift going down into outfitting and the landing pads spinning round.
You jump to the star supposedly because it is the biggest gravity well in the system. I do wonder if that means you might jump to a black hole in some systems?

I agreee that the missions could do with more variety, but I have had "in between" bounty missions where the target was in an orca or a dropship.