5punk

I'm interested in this but i'm limited time-wise (and attention span!) and the reviews aren't that positive.

Is it worth it? Is it better / different to EVE?

I'd compare it to freelancer, which I'm sure I have compared the original elite in the past.

It's a bit of a timesink, but not like eve, you can have a 20 minute play or a 17 hour transport thing, if you really want to.

My only real criticism is that there's no clan/guild/corp type thing, only wings, which are more like teams/squads and the general multiplayer is very much playing together alone.

There's also no story, so it's something of a "grind ship, buy ship, grind next ship" treadmill.

Well there might be a story, seen some news posts recently about aliens and such.

buzzmong wrote:Well there might be a story, seen some news posts recently about aliens and such.

The original game had Tribbles (Trumbles) and, I seem to recall, Tholians.

It took me a while, but I finished a salvage mission. I had to learn how to scan things, jump around the system a few times, got beaten up by a couple of bandits, repaired and upgraded my guns, finally got my salvage and a few extra goodies, got fined about c1200 for illicit cargo, and eventually got my c15,000 reward. In that time I reckon I could have made half a million in courier missions. It was an interesting diversion, but not worth it unless they put another 0 on the end of the reward. Might try mining next.

I haven't tried mining yet, I'm firmly in the trader camp at the moment - which is definately a grind to get a better ship to gind some more to finally end up with what I want.
The problem with Elite is that it gives you a huge sandbox and tells to to toddle off and have fun. I've set myself a goal of getting a Python and then taking a trip to Pratchetts Disc - which is fucking miles away. After that, maybe an Anaconda and travel out to the founders system (which anyone can get into, just need to rank up to Elite - or be a kickstarter backer) Point is, you need to set your own goals, otherwise it's just a space flying game thing.

Some handy links:
www.eddb.io
www.edshipyard.com
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteTraders/c ... _anaconda/

I'm up for a 5punky 5pace trip if anyone else is, I can outfit my type 7 to act as a fuel barge so you guys can refuel the smaller ships.

It's a huge sandbox with only a couple of toys in it though. Most of the goals fall into "buy something" or "go somewhere" or some combination of both. Which obviously works for a lot of people, and I'm enjoying the lovely mechanics of doing those things, but I'd love it if there were some way of finding narrative campaigns. You can get involved with factions and alter the course of events can't you? Maybe once I'm happy with the mission types I can pick a side and ride it to victory or defeat.

On that subject. Those missions which require you to supply an amount of a certain type of goods, do we just have to be prescient to know what they're going to need? Or is the idea to keep encyclopaedic logs of the nearby systems so you can fly out and get them?

If people want to give mining a go, I am sure a few of us wouldn't mind flying escort duties.

Dog Pants wrote:On that subject. Those missions which require you to supply an amount of a certain type of goods, do we just have to be prescient to know what they're going to need? Or is the idea to keep encyclopaedic logs of the nearby systems so you can fly out and get them?

You can felcher the galaxy map to very specifics to see where has things for sale, IIRC.

And yup, I'm happy to do mining/shootan.

Find ore: http://www.hozbase.co.uk/elitedangerous

Find trade routes: http://www.elitetradingtool.co.uk/ and https://eddb.io/

Find ship fits: https://coriolis.io/

Do Robigo runs to make phat lewt: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthrea ... w-players)

Go exploring: http://imgur.com/nsI1V08

Enjoy the views: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/03/ ... 34x490.jpg

I had a bash at mining yesterday and it's not too complex. Find rocks, pop a survey drone, shoot the nice ones with a mining laser, scoop up the bits that come off, refine and ditch the junk. Took me a little while in my admittedly crappy mining hauler, with its one small mining laser and huge 8t capacity, but it was reasonably pleasant. Then I had to wander a few systems away to sell it, because obviously there's an abundance in the system I mined it from. I made about 2k. So totally not worth it, at least with my little setup. Maybe a big ship with better lasers and a bit more skill in finding the ore would be more profitable, but it's a lot of work.

Conversely I had a bash at salvaging and smuggling again tonight. Flew between a few USS, picked up a bunch of salvage before I found the black box I was after, popped a bandit along the way. Unfortunately the fight attracted the rozzers and I picked up a 20k fine for all the stuff I'd found, but with the mission bonus I still came out 60k on top. Much more loot, about the same amount of time. I got into the station okay by blasting through the door at 200kph and jamming the brakes on, although I don't know if that's because I'd already been scanned and fined. I also don't know if I'd have been fined for just picking up the black box. Either way, enjoyable and profitable, so worth trying again. Maybe with the cash I make from salvage I can buy a big ship and retire as a miner.

Ooh! 75% reward for a community goal (120t of superconductors shipped over 5 one-jump trips, albeit with the stations about a gazillion miles from the jump points), netted me just over 1.5mil plus about 300k in profit from the shipments themselves. Not a bad few hours' work.