Elite: Dangerous looks better already!

[kurush]

I am trying to figure out whether KickStarter cobra is good enough for trading and investigation. The buggers didn't fit a docking comp on it and it is 500cr more than the amount of credits you have. Docking is such a chore I guess I'll have to figure out how to make those missing credits without running into a station wall.

[brucewarren]

Pre-wipe my cobra had a 23 and a bit light year range, but it cost an arm. leg and a kidney to pay for the upgrades

Best way is probably always going to be an upgraded frame shift drive, but a better ship will likely help too. Even the freagle has a slightly longer range than the sidey when both are stripped.

As will swapping out a lot of E grade gear for D grade. You get to save weight and get better gear so it's a win win. Sadly it gets heavier again from C and up,

[Nyax]

Are there better spec frame shift drives then? I looked in the outfitting section but it didn't look like there were?

I'd fire up the game and check but the servers aren't letting me log in at the moment.

That doesn't bode well for the 16th December...

[brucewarren]

They seem to be as rare as hens teeth for some reason, but yes they do exist. Drives go from E right up to A, but grade A drives are expensive.

The 4A drive in my late lamented cobra set me back 1.6 mill and I wouldn't want to imagine the cost of the one's you'd fit to an asp

I'm also having trouble logging in. I hope Gamma 1.01 hasn't broken something

[Rug]

I'm also having trouble logging in. I hope Gamma 1.01 hasn't broken something

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=64467

[kurush]

Does anybody know how the insurance thing works? Basically if I spend time upgrading my cobra to max and then hit tab instide a station by an accident, to what point I will be able to recover?

[Avis]

Does anybody know how the insurance thing works? Basically if I spend time upgrading my cobra to max and then hit tab instide a station by an accident, to what point I will be able to recover?

Don't hit tab inside a space station

Insurance is (I believe)
10% value of ships hull + 5% value of upgrades/modules/weapons etc
Cargo, scan data, bounties are lost

[brucewarren]

Just keep the landing gear down. Since 3.9 it disables boost until you raise it again.

They've also added a loan company. If you can't afford the rebuy cost of your ship they'll front up the difference up to maximum of 200,0000 credits

Should that still not be enough you have one other option. Provided the hull alone isn't over 200K you can simply deselect any gear you can live without from the rebuy option to bring the price down.

You should be OK with a cobra, even a heavily kitted out one in which the gear is 10x the cost of the hull, Mine cost a whopping 220K and I only had 90K so the insurance guys lent me the missing 130K. Took ages to pay it off though

If you were flying a dropship and you had no money I think it would be sidey time, but anyone who can afford one of those mothers ought to have put something aside for a rainy day.

[felter]

Damn it can't get back into the game after it booted me out.

So why is it when I get an interdiction, and I kill the ship and it drops cargo, and when I pick said cargo up it reports it as stolen, surely that should not be so. Fair enough if it had been me that had interdicted the ship, blew it up for its cargo, then I would say the cargo was stolen. But the other guy was a pirate, he attacked and tried to kill me, so any loot he drops should be fair game, it should be mines and not be classed as stolen.

[Rug]

So why is it when I get an interdiction, and I kill the ship and it drops cargo, and when I pick said cargo up it reports it as stolen

<snip>

But the other guy was a pirate ...

Given that he was a pirate, I think they've got you bang to rights on a charge of handling stolen goods

The way I rationalise the whole 'scoop it up and it's stolen' idea is by regarding all cargo as tagged with a form of GPS, and that cargo floating in space is simply awaiting collection by the owners or insurers. They don't like going all that way to find that someone has 'alf-inched it !

Rug

[felter]

So why is it when I get an interdiction, and I kill the ship and it drops cargo, and when I pick said cargo up it reports it as stolen

<snip>

But the other guy was a pirate ...

Given that he was a pirate, I think they've got you bang to rights on a charge of handling stolen goods

The way I rationalise the whole 'scoop it up and it's stolen' idea is by regarding all cargo as tagged with a form of GPS, and that cargo floating in space is simply awaiting collection by the owners or insurers. They don't like going all that way to find that someone has 'alf-inched it !

Rug

Maritime law, but apart from that, we should be getting a reward for returning the stolen goods.

[kurush]

After some struggle I finally forced myself to try ED again. I have to say that Gamma is more playable than that early beta I tried before. Most of the chores are still there, but at least there is plenty of goods to trade and missions to take. It also seems that I found my favorite function in this game: Save and Exit to Main Menu
You don't want to go through that stupid sequence of leaving the station? Exit to the main menu, log back in and bah, you are magically outside and out of mass lock range.
You got attacked? As long as you are still at some distance, hit tab, exit to main menu, the game will force you to wait for 15 sec (lol) and if you still survive, the attacker will also disappear upon your next login.
So, to summarize, the game is still full of frigging navigational chores, lacking content, etc, etc, but logout button makes it bearable

[SteveMill]

After some struggle I finally forced myself to try ED again. I have to say that Gamma is more playable than that early beta I tried before. Most of the chores are still there, but at least there is plenty of goods to trade and missions to take. It also seems that I found my favorite function in this game: Save and Exit to Main Menu
You don't want to go through that stupid sequence of leaving the station? Exit to the main menu, log back in and bah, you are magically outside and out of mass lock range.
You got attacked? As long as you are still at some distance, hit tab, exit to main menu, the game will force you to wait for 15 sec (lol) and if you still survive, the attacker will also disappear upon your next login.
So, to summarize, the game is still full of frigging navigational chores, lacking content, etc, etc, but logout button makes it bearable

Yea - I'm afraid ED is a chore-driven game, you just have to go with the flow or it'll frustrate you.

I like the launch routine as it brings me into the game world.

[Rug]

I just bought a headset, so I can use the voice-attack thingy to get a bit more of a space-age vibe in the game. Enjoying it too. It doesn't pick up joystick buttons though, so I decided to go for a remap from scratch and setting up the VA commands.

Turns out that selecting generic joystick appears to set up the options, but they didn't work until I went into the options screen and re-bound them. Unfortunately, I found this out while launching inside a station, and didn't get out until I had outstayed my welcome, and been shot to bits.

Never mind, that's what insurance is for ! Mapped enough to fly out of the station, then set up other stuff while in the no-fire zone. (Note to self, remember to start in the tutorials after a remap in future ...). Set off on my travels, and was docking at another station when I got shot to bits again. Apparently I had picked up a fine of some sort while being blown up the last time, which I hadn't noticed. Claimed insurance. Tried to pay off fine. Failed. Got confused and frustrated. Deleted save ...

Since then I have had the most enjoyable Elite session so far. No missions available, so I decided to trade to get rid of the 'Penniless' ranking. Bought some waste and set off into the blue (? black ?).

I found myself travelling through a series of station-free, apparently anarchic systems - running lower on fuel, but scanning a few stars and planets on the way. Finally down to just 20 credits and a near empty set of fuel tanks I finally found somewhere to dock. As a bonus they were keen to buy my stock of waste as well as pay plenty for the exploration data, and I was back in business after a tense few jumps.

Still only 'Penniless' though, but I am now only 'Mostly Aimless'

So to (finally ) get to the point ... Does anyone have a list of the three sets of ranks ? I have had a look but failed to find them.

Rug

[theeclownbroze]

"Elite: Dangerous looks better already!"

More like "Elite: Dangerous looks BETA already!"

fixed that lol.

[kurush]

I like the launch routine as it brings me into the game world.

The routine is not that bad, althought both times I died so far was when leaving a station. First time was that accidental tab incident and second time I clipped the gate, the stupid game kicked me back into the station and decided that I'm trespassing at the same time. 20 sec is not enough to turn around and RLSG

But in any case, see if you still like it after playing some hours comparable to what was invested in Egosoft games... Egosoft had this in-station mechanics in X2 and they at least were smart enough to provide a button to get you out instanteneously. "Save & Exit" + Docking Computer seriously improved the quality for me.

[felter]

I'm getting more than a little bit pissed off at constant disconnections and bad lag, and that's playing solo. The perfect example of why a single player game should not be tied down to a server.

Also I hate vipers, they just rip me a new one before I can do anything.

[brucewarren]

I made the mistake of buying one. 7 light year range

Even stripped down I could barely get to 7.5. I had to go back tot the hauler.

[kurush]

Also I hate vipers, they just rip me a new one before I can do anything.

That kickstarter cobra thing seems to be a decent ship. I have yet to try fighting, need to get better lasers first I guess. But I can run away from almost anything. I only had to use the "Save and Exit" maneuver once when chased by a Python. Others I can just outrun.
And yes, I do hate DB for all the network features. I have decent internet but it looks like he basically dumped half of the cash he collected on implemented the features to annoy me And they are implemented so stupidly that will probably not generate him enough cashflow to keep it going.

[Nyax]

I made the mistake of buying one. 7 light year range

Even stripped down I could barely get to 7.5. I had to go back tot the hauler.

Hmmm they really need to make Frame shift drives a bit more common to buy. I'm currently in the closing stretch of a 80 light year journey to the core systems in the (hopefully not flawed) hope that it'll be easier to find tech and ships there.

Unless of course equipment availability is just random, in which case: That's rubbish.

Personally I'd like to see some sort of tech level indicator for systems that denotes the range of ships and equipment available so that it's easier to find stuff.