Mr. Tact wrote on Jan 24, 2015, 22:37:
Well, I would ask for a screenshot of your exploration setup, but since you are no where near a station... I assume you have auto-maintenance loaded?

No. I almost bought one, but they are quite expensive. I know they could come in handy, but I am honestly shocked how easy it is to get outside of 'civilized' space. By the time I realized it, I'm pretty far away from everything.

The thing I've found out...there's literally no one out here. I got interdicted twice, both times by eagles...which makes no sense, but oh well. I have a full load of weapons, so I'm not a typical explorer ship. Melted those fools. I also put in a class 6 shield to compensate for the lack of auto-field units.

This is my loadout:

Combat explorer

Trying out this exploration thing. I saw something on the map called "Coal Sack". Cool, let's check it out. Two hours later, I'm still not quite there. Jesus, this game is big. It's also really eery that there are no stations anywhere within 300ly.

I wonder what my exploration data is worth...

Mr. Tact wrote on Jan 24, 2015, 17:16:
So are you still doing rare runs or are you doing bulk trading? I tried using that trade site for bulk trading but didn't get what the site said I would. Tried three different sets of information, maybe it is just bad perception by me, but it seems the rare run does better for me. Of course, I only have a type 6....

I'm doing bulk trading. The site isn't always accurate since the data is input by players. They usually have timestamps...the newest ones (a couple hours old) are usually correct.

The rare trade loops is probably better for the type 6. I've got 232t of cargo space, so bulk trading is easier for me.

I just bought an Asp and outfitted it to explore. I've got a viper to fight, asp to explore, and clipper to trade. That should keep me occupied while I slowly build up money for the python.

This comment was edited on Jan 24, 2015, 19:13.

Yeah, I have about $62M if I were to sell all of my assets. I'll probably wait until I get closer to $80M to buy it. More trucking!

Oh man, I am so close to a python! I need about $5 million more. Or ten (for insurance). Really twenty (for some guns). And then another hundred million after that (for upgrades). Fuck this game...

Mr. Tact wrote on Jan 23, 2015, 12:06:
I assume someone is either doing this, or has already done it -- but have you read about anyone circumnavigating the galaxy? Just curious. Not sure how you would define that...

Funny you mention this...

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=103513

He didn't circumnavigate it, but he flew from one end to the other. Ridiculously awesome. If I had a bag of weed and two weeks off from work...

Edit:

He started at Sol, then flew on a path straight through the galactic core and onward to the outer spiral arm. He's so far out now that he can't really get back. Well, he could, but it'd take a while. He hit a binary red giant star system and melted 30% of his hull.

It's crazy to think you are so far outside of civilization that there's no stations anywhere close to you. If you fuck up, you are dead. That is some NASA shit right there.

It's awesome all the players offering to escort him back home. After that journey, I'd take a break for a bit.

This comment was edited on Jan 24, 2015, 04:03.

I bought this game and quit before the subscription kicked in. This game made no sense to me at all. There's weird classes and subclasses that my intro never explained to me.

Maybe I'll revisit it when I'm less busy mapping the galaxy in Elite...

Undocumented Alien wrote on Jan 23, 2015, 15:07:
I was in the Aerial System dropping off some supplies and along the way to the Station I noticed a couple of the 'targets' specified "Conflict Zone High Intensity".

What exactly does that mean? If I drop out of Super Cruise there it will be a War Zone where I fight for either the Fed's or Imperials?

I'm in my Type-6 so don't want to drop into some nasty stuff...

Yes. There's low and high intensity zones. If you enter one, everyone will be neutral until you join a faction. So far, it's been less fed vs empire--more whatever system vs a rebel faction. All the slave rebellions on the galnet are hints to locate where the combat zones are.

Low intensity zones have smaller ships...mostly cobra and below. There may be some Anacondas, but if there are, usually, it's just one or two and they are by themselves. It's a good place to practice combat. You get combat vouchers for each kill, which you turn in similar to a bounty. You get $3k per kill (it doesn't scale like a bounty...so an Anaconda==Sidewinder, so don't waste your time hunting the big ships). Not super profitable, but if you're looking to upgrade your combat rating, it's the most efficient way that I've found. There are always ten enemy ships around. Bounty hunting makes more money, but you have to spend time searching around for npcs to spawn.

High intensity zones will have 2-3 times the amount of ships and can vary among any class. You don't have to have a super heavy duty python or anything to join in, but be careful...it can be easy to get targeted by more than one ship at once if you are too aggressive.

Also be very leery of players. A lot of times they might stay neutral, fly behind you, then join an enemy faction and nuke you while you're engaged. Or just engage you while you're in the middle of a dogfight.

Last thing, friendly fire sucks. Sometimes a fool ally flies right into your lasers...and, boom! The entire battlefield is hostile to you. Run your ass away, as you have about 10 seconds to live.

If you are in a t6...move along. Nothing to see here.

Edit:
I've made this seem more high stressed than it actually is. Think of this as "arcade" mode. Endlessly respawning enemies. You fight until you take damage to the point where you leave. This is actually hard, because (at least in my case) I always think I can last longer than I'm able. Please don't be a fool and enter a combat zone with cargo and not enough insurance money. I am flabbergasted at the amount of people not realizing you don't get your ship back when it asplodes.

It is really fun, and helps improve your radar awareness... theres usually a lot going on. And fighting around a constantly exploding super carrier ship is fucking awesome.

Edit:

Also, if you didn't know:

Shields. Pips in them are worthless...unless you put in 4. Then you get 150% shield strength. It's exponential. These numbers are off, but it's about the right percentage...1, 8, 16, 150.

So, if you are in the habit of putting one or two pips in shilds...don't do it in combat.

This comment was edited on Jan 23, 2015, 19:40.

SpectralMeat wrote on Jan 23, 2015, 11:29:
The community goals will be interesting

Nice! That comes out pretty soon, too!

So, I'm home and did a test. I bought a sidewinder for $32,000. Selling it, without removing any of the internals that came with it, I get $28,800. So, indeed, you lose exactly 10% when you sell a ship back.

I'm not going to research it to the point of selling internals and then selling the ship and adding all of it back up together.

I think, it's safe to say, that when you sell a ship, sell the internals to get 100% of their cost back...then sell the bare bones ship at a 10% loss.

Undocumented Alien wrote on Jan 22, 2015, 15:59:
I'm sure most of you know about VoiceAttack, a 3rd party app that allows you to dictate functions within E:D. I thought this was a pretty cool YouTube video od someone using it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4QkltClArw

Cool, but not my bag. I like pressing buttons. If there was a way to turn voice attack into dealing with the com system, then I might use it.

I do like how he had "weapons" and "shields" set though. That's much faster than fiddling with the hat when you want immediate full power to a subsystem.

SpectralMeat wrote on Jan 22, 2015, 14:53:

Vall Forran wrote on Jan 22, 2015, 14:46:

Orogogus wrote on Jan 22, 2015, 13:55:
I think people have been saying components are 100% buyback, but ships incur a 10% penalty. Also that you should strip your ships before selling them or else the components eat that penalty too.

Huh. I knew components were 100% buyback, so I thought ships would be too. I've been looking around to confirm this but haven't had any luck so far.

It would be super easy to confirm but I am still at work.
My suspicion is that it is true because looking at how much money I supposed to have and how much I have in the bank plus ships it doesn't add up.
Imagine selling a fully equipped Cobra that's worth 3mill and get dinged 300k for it.

One night, I sold my clipper and bought an asp. Then sold he asp and bought the clipper again. ...ouch.

Orogogus wrote on Jan 22, 2015, 13:55:
I think people have been saying components are 100% buyback, but ships incur a 10% penalty. Also that you should strip your ships before selling them or else the components eat that penalty too.

Huh. I knew components were 100% buyback, so I thought ships would be too. I've been looking around to confirm this but haven't had any luck so far.

SpectralMeat wrote on Jan 22, 2015, 05:57:
Did you upgrade both or just with standard equipment?
I might buy a sidewinder and upgrade something on it then sell it and see if the price I get for it is the same I paid.

Both had upgrades. You should get exactly back what you paid for. There was an exploit on the Founder's World, where people would buy upgrades at a 10% discount, then go to another system and sell it for full price. That's why they added the 'buyback' option in the outfitting screen. Once you sell a part, you can only re-buy that same exact one.

I bought my clipper for $23 million or something. It's now worth $32 million, so the upgrades must be taken into account.

Vio wrote on Jan 22, 2015, 03:27:
Can you fly from one system to another yet i.e. warp or whatever or are you still stuck with one orbital body?

This is the deceiving part. It's still Arena Commander, with future patches. You are in space, but within the bounding box of the two maps you can choose from.

I tried several times to play it. The controls are very laggy...I know Mr. Roberts said that was by design. When I roll my ship, it's like I have a 300ms lag. Also, the radar is the worst piece of crap I have ever seen. The center radar makes no sense. For some ships, it's not even active. They have the wing commander thing where they put an arrow at the edge of your screen pointing to your target. But...it's not 1995 anymore (most of us play higher than 640x480). The arrow is really tiny and transparent against all the stupid useless blinking UI that makes absolutely no sense...not to mention you are almost always blacking out whenever you turn (that is actually cool, but again, too much going on to follow a fucking tiny arrow).

I saw you can change the screen on the left side to four different modes. Cool...I cycled them, then my guns stopped working. This game takes about 3 minutes to load on my fairly pimp computer. So dying pretty much makes me press the exit button.

But, your avatar is synchronized with your stick movements! And the pretty! TrackIr is implemented now, so that's cool.

I just get the feeling the dev team nerded out on trivial stuff without forming the foundation of a game. They have tons of ships! Each one has it's own unique HUD and interior...and you can buy them for real money! Woot!

My two cents.

I didn't keep track of the figures exactly, but I've bought and re-bought ships lots of times. Far as I can tell, it's 1 to 1, there's no depreciation.

I sold the clipper at one point and bought an asp, then at the end of the night sold the asp and re-bought the clipper. I didn't notice any loss of money.

It's not as good as being able to instantly transport to a station, but I made a hauler to be my shuttle between ship locations.

http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=30V,mpT0mI,2-3m3m3I2C2C2C3c,4zq7Q4

It's super cheap and has a 34ly jump range! The fuel scoop is optional...I forget how dirt cheap the fuel costs are for the cheap ships. I think it cost me $100 credits for half a tank.

People shouldn't mess with you or are stupid if they do. No guns, no cargo, there's no reason, unless they are trying to be a dick.

I put an advanced discovery scanner and detailed scanner in the empty spots to get some extra exploration stuff along the way...but it's optional, especially if you just need to jump quickly around the galaxy.

SpectralMeat wrote on Jan 21, 2015, 13:07:

Vall Forran wrote on Jan 21, 2015, 12:55:
can we (finally) fly around in space? Or is it another version of Arena Commander, but with pvp?

No
Read the yellow text above

Dammit. I installed it and didn't notice anything different about it.

Nice! I can't imagine playing without my trackIR. I am so used to it now, I turn my head to "look" around in other games.

Ooh, this will be interesting. I'll give this a whirl.

I'm not quite sure what this is...can we (finally) fly around in space? Or is it another version of Arena Commander, but with pvp?

Updating it now. 4gb to go...