Helianthus Annuus posted:

can this be in the op

Verviticus posted:

i think ive clicked on and read the elite dangerous OP every iteration ive seen plus the same one multiple times and i still dont really know what differentiates it from, say, eve online

Mike the TV posted:

quote:

I'm In, Sign Me Up
First, proceed to Discord: https://discord.gg/0jUaPgJySwzQTCbf
You must make an account.
Second, follow the instructions here: http://www.diamondfrogs.co.uk/paramypad/
Password: [REDACTED - See PGS Thread]

Blind Rasputin posted:

Get the gently caress in
https://xboxdvr.com/gamer/meatbishop/video/65433940

quote:

El Perkele wrote on Dec 11, 2018 18:28:
Yo I remade my posts for Ship poo poo etc. from 3.1 thread

Elite: Dangerous ships
The builds in here are by no means perfect. They are fully intended to show you what you can do with various ships, as well as to give you some starting point. Do not think these are all there is. When it comes to weapons, try to find your favourite. I gave builds for early ships because, well, at the point where you're flying an Anaconda you probably start to have an idea what you want to use it for.

Small ships - cheap tier
Eagle
Eagle is a cheap, manouverable and fun little ship. Since it carries mostly same internals as Sidewinder, you'll do well to simply swap your better modules from Siddey. Generally, the ship is an upgrade of Siddey in almost every aspect. With a bit of tinkering, it can carry more cargo. Even more, it packs more of a punch due to one additional (small) hardpoint. Depending on your choice, pick either class 3 shields for more combat-oriented build, or class 2 shields (you can then carry 8 tons of cargo in class 3 cargo slot). Unmodified, Eagle is a bit strapped for power, and requires power priority management.
Cost to buy: 44k.
Cost to A-grade: about 2M.
Budget generalist: https://s.orbis.zone/15_w
Dumb A-rated combat build - this build is dumb because a Viper III costs about the same: https://s.orbis.zone/15_x

Hauler
Hauler is not for combat. As a matter of fact, you should completely forget about doing any combat in this ship. When outfitted for hauling, Hauler can carry a max of 22 tons of cargo for a meager 68k credits. If you want a bit more stuff out of it, a basic cargo Hauler that can do stuff might look like this: https://s.orbis.zone/160n

Now, this looks completely abysmal until you realize that this particular Hauler actually has a laden jump range of 16 light years. That's... not bad, actually, for a 243k credit 22 ton cargo ship. As a matter of fact, Haulers are often employed as cheap explorer ships: https://s.orbis.zone/160p which also double as taxi ships. With Farseer's engineering, Haulers can reach over 40 light years in jump range. This means they are viable exploration vessels for just 1.1M credits.

Viper Mk. III
Viper Mk. III is one of the speediest ships in the entire game. It's also nimble. It's a very good beginner-grade combat ship that, when correctly outfitted, punches well above its weight. If you choose to pick Viper as one of your very first ships, know that it can also perform the same small-time data deliveries as your earlier ships. Viper goes heavy on class 3 internals, which is also good news for your future updates. Weapons-wise, it has two small and two medium hardpoints. With medium hardpoints, you can start to do stuff with plasmas etc. It's a good ship. Get one and love one.
Budget multicannon combat build: https://s.orbis.zone/15_y
Typical combat build: https://s.orbis.zone/15_-

Adder
One of the first multiroles, Adder is well-liked by many pilots. It's a very light multirole - not as versatile as a Cobra - that offers great capability at a low cost. A standard multirole mission runner could look something like this: https://s.orbis.zone/160j

Cobra Mk. III
After Adder, Cobra III is a respected and widely loved multipurpose ship, and often stars high in the "most liked"-lists of CMDRs. It can do pretty much everything in at least some respects and is very fast - unengineered, the boost speed can exceed 440m/s. OK, it costs four times as much as an Adder and combat-wise is perhaps not as strong as the cheaper Viper III, but it can easily carry 36 tons of cargo and outrun/outfight the less scary pirates. You can participate in community goals (CG), you can do rare commodity trading, you can do tourist missions, you can do smuggling and pretty much everything else too, at least to some extent. Get it. For pure combat, you probably still want the Vipers or a Vulture, and for pure cargo you'll probably want something like a Type-6, but you can do these all in Cobra III as well. It can really make everything.

Viper IV
A heavier, more combat focused Viper, that approaches Cobra. It's a solid multipurpose combat ship that gets a bad reputation because people do not realize what sort of hull it has (good). This is for those people who like Cobras but want a bit more murder and death in the side.

Vulture
Vulture is a pure combat ship. It has powerplant issues, jump range is super mehh and it loses in top speed to some lighter and cheaper ships. However, it has strong shields, great hull, two large hardpoints, is very nimble and handles superbly, and can remain more than competitive for very, very long time. The fire arcs of the two large hardpoints are great. This is definitely a ship you should get if you like killing other ships. As a combat ship this ship absolutely sucks donkey balls in any other role, but in combat? Not bad. Not bad at all.
The powerplant issues of this ship are serious. There are many builds that require engineering (generally Overcharger Power Plant and Dirty Drive Thrusters). This means that something like double plasma accelerator requires quite significant sacrifices and time spent, and is not beginner friendly - however, if you have a Vulture and like it, take it out every now and then, and make it your little lovely killer bee.

Standard beam+MC build: https://s.orbis.zone/1602 this is a starting point. From there, you can go basically wherever, because Vulture is really strong and can keep up with larger ships easily. But remember power management!

As one of the first combat ships armed with great hull, Vulture offers you a possibility to tinker with different builds. Here are two basic models:
Hybrid tank, which uses hull+bi-weaves. Takes hull damage, shrugs it off, recharges shields fast: https://s.orbis.zone/1609
Shield tank, which uses a standard shield and emphasizes shield recharge rate at the cost of lower hull integrity: https://s.orbis.zone/160a . Note how thirsty this build is for energy!

Engineered, these builds start to look quite different and are absolutely no joke if you happen to face a player in something along these lines:
Hybrid tank with resistance emphasis, no weapons: https://s.orbis.zone/160d The trick in here is to balance shield and hull resistances to decrease incoming damage, while keeping the shield's recharge rate good.
Shield tank, resistance emphasis again: https://s.orbis.zone/160e note how this build tries to balance both shield and hull resistances and also ramp up shield damage, but requires A LOT of juice to run it, and has to sacrifice some utility slots.
This is common in high-end combat ships, and Vulture will probably be among your first combat ships that can fully utilize these sort of specialized combat builds. This is not something that is purely necessary, but something you can remember when you're thinking further ahead.

Diamondback Scout
This is a combat exploration ship. I have no experience with it; it looks pretty much like a Cobra. 4 utility slots, 2x medium and 2x small hardpoints, and a pretty great jump range.

Type-6
There will always be a point where a good freighter is what you need. You have that on Type-6. It's a very basic, barebone freighter which does one thing and one thing only: hauls stuff. The cockpit is great, it lands on small pads and it's quite cheap too.

Freighters require some thought in outfitting. You want to maximize your jump range, meaning an A-rated frame shift drive (FSD) is almost a must. A fuel scoop is definitely a plus if you take longer routes. You're not going to fight anything, so you don't really need weapons. Your shields - should you choose to need one, and in Open you do need them - need pure strength, not recharge time, so pick the strongest shield you can afford and ditch the bi-weaves if possible. After all, once your shields go down you're in poo poo, the faster recharge won't help. To avoid death, you want to be as hard to hit as possible, so pick A-rated thrusters if you can, chaff and maybe a heat sink launcher. Eventually, you will get intercepted, and you just have to either run and high-wake to another system or surrender.

Though Type-6 may seem like a bad joke at the first glance, 92 tons of cargo for a 3M ship is actually pretty serious. Imperial Slaves or narcotics trading can net you profits in excess of 5k CR per ton, and basic medicine rushes can give you credit of over 10k per ton. This means you'll be netting almost 500k on single run. If you find some really great and fast route, you'll be making millions in an hour.

Basic build (without fuel scoop) is about this: https://s.orbis.zone/160s

Keelback
It's a funny Type-6 with a fighter bay! This is the cheapest SLF bay equipped ship in the game. I haven't flown this.

Dolphin
Small passenger ship. Might get a new life as module slot restrictions are dropped?

Larger, more expensive ships start about here
Asp Explorer
AspX is like the big, weird brother of Cobra Mk. III. Although the ship shines in serious exploration, it can also haul cargo and tourists, perform general mission running and, if your combat is good enough, also do some bounty hunting. The ship does not come cheap, but most likely it will stay an important ship in your fleet for quite some time. There are better ships for combat, and eventually you'll get better mission runners too - but for exploration, this ship remained one of the top choices. After Krait Phantom is introduced, it is possible that AspX will no longer rule the "mid-range medium long-range exploration" niche. If exploration is your thing, you can also decide to go for the cheaper Diamondback Explorer, which has some other leverages over AspX too.

Typical exploration build: https://s.orbis.zone/160t
Typical multirole build: https://s.orbis.zone/160u this is sort of "do everything" build that is not too great in anything.

At this point I think you're starting to get the idea about ship outfitting so I'm not including builds except where I have one. Ask the thread if you want advice. This took way too long anyways.

Asp Scout
A sick joke, that's what this is!

Diamondback Explorer
One of the longest-jumping ships in the game, seconded by only the expensive Anaconda, DBX has a reputation as a very solid explorer. While it is a bit less lax than AspX when it comes to outfitting, it's nonetheless widely liked exploration ship.

Type-7
A great hauler. This transports stuff. That's all it does. It's pretty good at it. If you like transporting stuff you should buy one. Large pads only, so Python is still the king at outpost trading.

High-end medium poo poo
Fer-de-lance
Probably the best, at least one of the best, combat ship in the game, as well as PvP favourite. 4x medium and 1x huge hardpoint, great shields, good powerplant, excellent manouverability - and absolutely sucks at travelling or doing anything else but combat. Looks glorious and kills stuff. Is expensive. Kills.

Mamba
New ship for 3.4. Fast FdL-type combat ship. Huge hardpoint! Fast!

Alliance Chieftain
Alliance Chieftain is pretty much the Federal Assault Ship with a bit weaker hull, no navy rank system, and different hardpoint selection. Instead of 2x large and 2x medium, Chief has 2x large, 1 medium and 3x small. The hardpoint placement is excellent, and Chief is almost comparable to FAS in most ways (it's less of a ramming wrecking ball, though). Module protection is OK. Chief is a great medium combat ship, and I heartily recommend a nice, A-rated one for all combat pilots.

Here's a basic Chief wikth 3x plasma and 3x rail. It can kill stuff pretty well. This is a hybrid tank build. https://s.orbis.zone/1614

Alliance other ships
I have no idea, one of these is a Chieftain with a fighter bay, another is like another Chieftain with something different like these are super ships someone else can talk stuff about them

Krait Mk. II
Python light. Can have a fighterbay. Is better than Python in combat. Is very good. You will buy this ship if you like medium-large multiroles. I prefer this over the Python due to better hardpoint placement and generally more pleasant sense of flight - as well as speed - but honestly Krait is a bit too close to Python to truly stand out. It's very much a question of preference and what you do.

Krait Phantom
A smaller Krait, new for 3.4. Third best jumper in game. Looks pretty neat!

Python
Say hello to arguably the best, or at least one of the best, ships in the game. Python is a medium multirole ship, which can easily also perform combat and even exploration duties. It can easily haul over 200 tons of cargo while still being well shielded, and it can land on outposts. This is the biggest cargo capacity ship that can do that, and that alone makes Python a great trader and mission runner. On top of that, unmodified Python possesses more shield strength than an Imperial Clipper, has immense firepower with 3x large and 2x medium hardpoints with great convergence, and good power and distributor. This has lead to Python being a stable in mission running for many players. The downsides of Python are the high cost and weird and partially below average manouverability, which can be almost completely circumvented using FA-off tricks. Pythons used to be utilized as combat ships a lot more, but are nowadays a rarer choice after cheaper, more combat-oriented vessels such as Alliance line and Krait have been released.

If you're thinking about getting a Python, do it. Luckily, Python shares many internals with larger ships. This means that money spent on your Python upgrades is money saved on larger ships and other mediums.

Here's an unarmed generalist A-rated build: https://s.orbis.zone/161d Weapons are, at the point you're flying a Python, mostly a personal choice.

Orca
Great tourist ship, handles well, is surprisingly dangerous in combat. Sees quite limited use outside tourist missions.

Federal Rank grind poo poo
These ships require Federal ranks to unlock. Ranks can be unlocked by running reputation missions for factions aligned with the particular superpower. This may take a long time.

Federal Dropship
"Slow" and "ungainly" are words used for this brick. Those are... sort of true and sort of not. FDS has relatively weak shields, but absolutely monstrous hull and module protection. It drifts a lot, but if you master FA-off and have some discipline, you can easily bring the ships terrifying 4x medium and 1x large hardpoints to bear down on a target. The ship is pretty much either a combat vehicle or a combat-heavy multirole. Jump range is bad, and engineering is sort of must to make this shine. Some people - writer included - love the ship, others hate it.

Federal Assault Ship
FAS is considered to be among the best combat ships in the game, along with the likes such as Fer-de-lance, Vulture and Chieftain. It is extremely mobile, handles almost like a Vulture, has 2x large and 2x medium hardpoints, has - again - ridiculous hull and module protection, does not die, rams everything and is viable even in Player vs. player combat. Just fill it with hull and module reinforcements, throw weapons you love into it, and take it out for a spin. For literally every other job there's a better choice, but it's definitely an experience in combat. If there's one ship in Federal line you have to test, it's this one.

Federal Gunship
Real name is Funship. FGS is the third Federation vehicle that looks practically the same as FDS and FAS. However, it has even more hardpoints and sports a fighter bay. It's slow and does not turn. The idea is to launch a fighter, tank damage while cackling maniacally, and unleash a shitload of firepower on anything that looks at you. Most famous build is probably "just overcharged multicannons everywhere". Do not plan to use this for anything else.

Federal Corvette
One of the so-called Big Three (since Types 9 and 10 do not count). Corvette is a specialized, large combat ship, with 2 huge hardpoints. It's expensive as gently caress. Some people use it multiroles, but it really shines with some ridiculous fuckoff beams slapped into the huges. It's surprisingly mobile for it's size.

Imperial Rank grind poo poo
Imperial Eagle
Fastest ship in the game with the correct engineering. This ship is... ehh I dunno, a race ship or something?

Imperial Courier
Truly wonderful little ship. Or poo poo, if you tune this into a speedster demon - with engineering and outfitting, you can get this thing to exceed 800m/s in boost. It carries 3x medium hardpoints - not insignificant - is pretty and has one of the best cockpits in the game. Additionally, it does not require too much rank grind and shields are good also! It is a great light multirole or a light combat vessel, maybe not as versatile as a Cobra but definitely a joy to fly. Get one!

Imperial Clipper
If you get your navy rank grind on, this is a ship you should aim for. Actually, you should probably aim for this ship anyways, because it's just a drat good ship.

Clipper is a medium ship that requires a large landing pad. It's hardpoint placement makes it less than ideal for combat - but it can definitely be a scary thing if outfitted for murder business - and large landing pad requirement means it cannot land on outposts. Outfitting it to higher grade is also expensive, but those level 5 and 6 components can be used widely in other mid- and late-game medium ships, so you're not losing all that much. Besides, at the point you're starting to consider the Clipper, you'll already probably have a few dozen millions under your belt.

Clipper is fast and fabulous. It's pretty, nice to fly, drifts all over the place, can haul an impressive amount of cargo, and offers great flexibility for mission running and general fuckery. It's a popular pirate vessel and sometimes also used for combat. Its perhaps not as versatile as a Python, but it's definitely a more exciting ship.

This here is a pirate ship: https://s.orbis.zone/1615 You can use this to steal Low Temperature Diamonds from fat Type-7s. That is considered fun gameplay.
This is cheaper cargo build: https://s.orbis.zone/1616

Imperial Cutter
Best hauler in the game. Ridiculous shield tank. Large Pretty. Super, super expensive late game ship. Does not turn but goes fast. Fabulous and appreciated.

Large and expensive poo poo
Anaconda
Anaconda. The biggest multirole ship and the one that is not locked behind rank grind. Anaconda is for multipurpose pilots what Cutter is to traders and Corvette to combat pilots - absolutely biggest motherfucker you can get. Anaconda can do it all - it has ample firepower to specialize in combat role, it's a great trader (although you can get a Type-9 with better cargo hold for that), it's probably the best long-range explorer in the entire game, and... well, you get the idea. It cannot land on outposts due to large landing pad requirement, but it's truly wonderful. Anaconda is also expensive and widely considered late-game ship. There's literally no role in the game you cannot perform in some extent in an Anaconda except for serious PvP combat.

Type-9
Huge-rear end slow bulk freighter. Immensely big, horrible to fly, and very very good transport. This is usually utilized in some specific cargo routes. It's BIG. It also prints money if you get some nice short-distance medicine run going.

Type-10
This is some xeno hunting thing I... I dunno. I haven't flown this. People do fly this. It has a fighter bay and shitloads of hardpoints. Someone else can talk about this one.

Beluga Liner
Passenger ship for weirdoes who like passengers. This is bound to change soon with module limitations removed, meaning Belugas can start to do other stuff.

AttackBacon posted:

I've done a ton of mining over the last week and here's my thoughts on it:

• Type of Mining: I found core cracking in Icy Rings was the best. Low Temperature Diamonds, Alexandrite, Grandidierite, and Void Opals all sell for huge amounts and often at the same station, making things very efficient. There's only one undesirable deposit, Bromellite, that I ever saw and lots of that showing up seemed to be an indicator that a particular hotspot was getting depleted. If possible you want to be in a Pristine ring with a big Void Opal hotspot. If you find a good spot you can get 150-200 mil an hour easily. Almost everything good is in core deposits, every now and then there'd be a crackable asteroid with subsurface LTD deposits, which is why I bother bringing a subsurface launcher, but it was pretty rare. I stopped bothering with non-crackables, the returns just pale in comparison. The multiple Abrasion Blaster trick works but it's inconsistent enough that I wouldn't bother trying to get it on every deposit, just bring multiple blasters and consider it a bonus whenever you get an extra fragment. You'll need to do some power management (and bring a better distributor) but that's not a big deal.
  
  
• Ship: I found the Python was the best overall. You can do rock cracking with a variety of ships but the Python gives you by far the most longevity in a field, which translates to more efficient runs and more profits. The Krait MkII is almost identical, sacrificing 64 tons of cargo (or 32 tons and your fuel scoop) for a bit better maneuverability. I found the Python was totally fine with 6A Thrusters which is what you want to be running and 64 tons of cargo is a big loss of longevity in the field. I didn't like the Krait Phantom at all, you're giving up half of your cargo for 30-40% more jump distance and range, it's not a profitable trade-off imo. On top of that you have to sacrifice your fuel scoop which just destroys any advantage in travel time if your point of sale is further than your fuel range. Anything else is either just a stepping stone to the Python or just too unwieldy for cracking (imo, I'm sure you could make a bigger ship work if you really wanted). Priorities for your modules are your thrusters and your pulse wave analyzer, you want those A-rated so that you can find crackable asteroids as quickly as possible. Shields are mandatory for cracking, just too risky otherwise.
  
  My current Python build is here: https://s.orbis.zone/1dds Substitute the weapons for mining equipment in game: Cannon=1D Abrasion Blaster, Beam Laser=2B Sub-Surface Displacement Missile, and Missile Rack=2B Seismic Charge Launcher. Coriolis doesn't have the Abrasion Blaster or Sub-Surface Missiles in it's builder yet and the stats for the Seismic Charge Launcher are wrong. Those substitutions match the power draw and weight. I found only a single 5D Collector Limpet Controller was necessary for cracking, having more than 3 limpets going doesn't meaningfully speed you up (since you're spending time breaking surface deposits) and is wasteful in the long run. D-rated was fine for both the Collector and Prospector, the Collectors are going to die faster than that anyways from running into asteroids and poo poo and I was never launching a Prospector from more than ~2km anyways.
  
  
• Combat: As long as you aren't logging out while in a field or moving from one field to another, you don't have to worry about NPC pirates. They only spawn when you first enter a field and they'll just ignore you if you're only carrying limpets at that time. If you wanted to be able to fight back, I'd say you'd want an Engineered ship that swaps to a 6A/6C Bi-Weave Shield Generator (for one of the cargo racks) and swaps some mining equipment for your preferred large emplacements (my combat miner had two large plasma accelerators). You lose the subsurface launcher and/or some abrasion blasters plus a fair bit of cargo space, so it's not really a tradeoff I felt was worth it. You can win PvE encounters with that build but you're probably gonna lose to a PvP encounter regardless unless you can just run.
  

One thing I found with route plotting in the Galaxy Map was that if you *Selected* the end point, it would have that selected in your nav computer, instead of the next point on your plotted route. To check if that's your problem just see if it's trying to jump you directly to your endpoint or if your next jump target is actually the next point on your route. If it's doing that just select and unselect the end point, maybe cancel and redo the route too. It should work then. I think the routing just won't work if you don't have enough range to get to a system by any route, rather than make you an impossible route.

quote:

El Perkele wrote on Dec 14, 2018 02:13:
Elite Dangerous Ships 201 - I have no idea what to do with these ships!

There are currently 36 ships available in Elite: Dangerous, though Cobra Mk. IV is limited to people who hate themselves. These various ugly, beautiful, unique, copypasted, useful and useless ships come in three landing pad sizes: small, medium and large. These landing pad sizes refer to which size landing pads the ships can use. [Since outposts do not have large pads, only small and medium ships can land in there.] It should also be noted that while large ships are often more effective than medium ones in their respective roles, they still perform the same tasks. Large ships can also be so expensive to run, so e.g. combat pilots often stick to more manouverable and cheaper medium ships.

Theoretically, all ships can be outfitted to do anything. You could for example outfit a Type-6 for combat, a Vulture for exploration, or a Fer-de-lance for mining. Practically speaking, this is not the best idea. You will soon notice that some ships shine in particular roles, while sucking at other roles for various reason. For example, a cargo Federal Corvette is possible and good, but still a very peculiar role for that ship, since there are cheaper options with less prohibitive acquirement, repair and rebuy costs. Likewise, Exploration Fer-de-lance is just because you’re paying premium for sub-par performance at that particular area.

Whenever you are outfitting a ship, the first thing you should think about is “what particular role will this ship fill” or “I want to fly ship X, what is it good for?” For example, if you are itching for exploration and have 30 million credits, it might not be smart to blow that all on a Federal Dropship. But if you really want to do some combat and multirole stuff in a heavily armoured pig, Dropship is a better choice than an Asp Explorer. In the end, you should just fly ships you want to fly because this is a computer game, but knowing the ships helps you enjoy the game a bit more.

To help you, a Fresh Pilot Straight Outta Sidewinder Licence Training, out, I created a very, very basic list of different roles and what ships are generally considered to be good at those particular roles. I simply listed the ships in an order a new pilot might consider them. The order is thus roughly ascending, with beginner ships in the beginning and more advanced in the end.

Exploration
Exploration vessels are designed to get out into the black, explore new systems and operate autonomically for prolonged periods of time. The builds generally prioritize jump range at the cost of everything else. Usually the ships are as light as possible, using undersized internals, no weapons, and extremely sparse equipment in general to shave off every unnecessary ton. Typical modules exploration vessels carry are detailed surface scanners, FSD boosters, large fuel scoops, planetary vehicle hangars, heatsinks and auto field maintenance units. Explorers love to travel the Black and post screenshots of their discoveries everywhere. Some explorers participate in co-operative missions, such as unveiling the plot mysteries of the game or group expeditions to the far side of the universe. It is a very popular part of the game, because the barrier of entry is quite low and competitive builds do not really matter.

Hauler
Diamondback Scout
Diamondback Explorer
Asp Explorer
Krait Phantom
Orca
Anaconda

Trading
Trading vessels prioritize cargo space, jump range and defence against pirates. They downgrade everything else, often lacking weapons and relying on evasion. These ships are designed to get to point A, grab as much cargo as possible, move to point B, evade pirates and sell cargo there. These ships are generally filled with cargo holds, with possible shields usually placed in the second largest optional slot, and do not usually sport offensive firepower. Traders are the Euro Truck Simulator II players of Elite, chugging peacefully along some trade routes, enjoying the relative monotony and good income.

Hauler
Adder
Cobra Mk. III
Type-6
Keelback
Asp Explorer
Type-7
Python
Imperial Clipper
Type-9
Anaconda
Imperial Cutter


Combat
Combat ships are specialized in killing other ships. They pull other ships from hyperspace or go to resource extraction sites (RES) or combat zones (CZ) to wreak havoc. They are generally pointedly outfitted for combat, and discard everything not completely necessary, sometimes even downgrading FSDs to get some more speed at the expense of jump range. The scene is dominated by medium pad ships; large combat ships are powerful, but very expensive. Late-game combat builds are often highly engineered and rely on various effects to make them absolutely devastating against other ships. These late-game ships also include various Player vs. Player (PvP) ships you may encounter in open. PvP is a completely different game and completely outside the focus of this short guide.

Combat ships are filled with combat-specific modules, such as ship-launched fighters, shields, shield cell banks, heatsinks, chaff, shield boosters, FSD interdictors, high alpha damage weapons, engineering, and module and hull reinforcements. Combat pilots are aggressive minmaxers who dive into technicalities of damage per second, shield resistances and speed, and wreak havoc and death wherever they go.

Eagle
Imperial Eagle
Adder
Viper III
Viper IV
Keelback
Imperial Courier
Vulture
Alliance Chieftain
Alliance Challenger
Alliance Crusader
Federal Dropship
Federal Assault Ship
Imperial Clipper
Fer-de-lance
Mamba
Krait Mk. II
Python
Anaconda
Federal Gunship
Federal Corvette
Imperial Cutter

Multirole
Multirole ships are the jacks of all trades. They non-specialize to perform wide array of roles adequately well, often with only light retrofitting between missions. Multiroles often balance cargo space with offensive firepower and may also carry utility modules such as planetary vehicle hangars, collection and hatch breaking limpets, FSD interdictors, kill warrant scanners etc. All of this depends on your approach and planned missions. Depending on commander, multirole ships can be pirate vessels, glorified traders, opportunistic combat vehicles, general data couriers, material gatheres, or mission runners. As you can already see, there’s really nothing in common with these ships except the lack of specialization in exploration-combat-trading triangle. Multiroles are generally closest to Han Soloing This Space Game you can get. Multirole commanders are generally experienced in almost every aspect of the game, including various illegal activities.

Sidewinder
Eagle
Imperial Eagle
Adder
Cobra Mk. III
Cobra Mk. IV
Viper IV
Imperial Courier
Imperial Clipper
Federal Dropship
Python
Krait Mk. II
Krait Phantom
Anaconda
Imperial Cutter

Tourism
Tourism is basically a form of either bulk transport or exploration. It comes in two forms: long-distance sightseeing, which is basically long-range exploration, and bulk/criminal transport, which is basically transport with cargo racks replaced with various classes of passenger cabins. Tourist pilots are glorified explorers who like shine, big, expensive ships and money.

Pre-3.4, the tourist ships of choice were:
Dolphin
Orca
Beluga
Anaconda
Freighters in general

Anti-Thargoid
[someone else plz]

Mining
For mining, you generally want medium or large ships with a lot of internals to fit in cargo, refineries and limpets. Ships like Python, Asp Explorer, Lakon freighters, Krait Mk. II, Federal Dropship and Anaconda are generally used for this. A certain degree of manouverability is well-liked due to cramped space at rings. Mining pilots are probably unicorns, since seeing one is so rare.


OUTFITTING YOUR SHIP FOR SOMETHING

1. Decide what role you want or what ship you want to fly
2. Make sure you have enough money for at least one and preferably multiple rebuys after outfitting.
3. Utilizing a website such as Coriolis.io, create a rough draft of the ship. While this is optional, once you are familiar with this you can save time. Since you’ll be seeing all these modules, understand the following:
• E-rated modules are stock and come with the ship. They are cheap.
• D-rated modules are lightweight. These are used to save weight, often in places such as life support and sensors.
• C-rated modules are good value, the “midrange” option
• B-rated modules are reinforced and heavy. These are usually used under specific circumstances, such as powerplants of PvP combat ships
• A-rated modules are the most expensive and best performing*.
4. After deciding on core internals, draft the utilities/optionals for whatever role you want.
5. If possible, move to a system owned by Li Yong-Rui; use EDDB.io website or Coriolis’s info on “Stations that sell this build” [upper right DOLLA sign]. Stations under his control offer a -15 % reduction in both purchase and rebuy price. More money!
6. Buy your ship! Do poo poo!
7. Do not fly without a rebuy
8. Remember that you get 100 % of module price back when you sell it, and you can also store modules. This means you do not lose money when practicing.
9. Do not despair. If in doubt, ask other people for advice.

*When other players speak of A-rating, they mean that they fit as much of the ship with A-rated modules as possible. However, this does not mean that every module in the ship should be A-rate! A-rating a ship can be extremely expensive, and on large ships an A-rated powerplant can cost more than the ship itself. Hence, it’s very much a question of budget. However, you can also plan ahead – a class 5A shield generator, for example, can be fitted to several other ships, so you’ll be saving money in future outfitting since you can just swap modules.

iospace posted:

Put in op please:

nessin posted:

I just found out there is going to be a new Distant Stars run. Always kind of regretted not going on the first one so I think I'm going to take my Christmas break opportunity to build up a real exploration ship, versus my cheapo hacked together one I used to have. Last time I played was just shortly after the Horizon's release and that wasn't for very long. Are there any critical grinds I need to accomplish beyond just cash for an exploration ship with high grade gear and a rover slot?

Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:

I’ll -post an OP tonight but how is the patch launch on the live servers?

GHOST_BUTT posted:

Man anybody who was worried about the new scanning system was historically wrong, this is incredible

pik_d posted:

I need so many new key bindings

GHOST_BUTT posted:

I'm on the XBone, I don't need to be able to quickly access my utilities anymore right, who needs heat sinks

Nostalgia4Infinity posted:

Krait Phantom get's my seal of approval for a exploration ship.

pik_d posted:

I need so many new key bindings

Athanatos posted:

Yeah, anyone got any good places to put all this?

GHOST_BUTT posted:

Man anybody who was worried about the new scanning system was historically wrong, this is incredible

I said come in! posted:

Is the learning curve for Elite Dangerous still crazy? This is the thing that is holding me back from enjoying this game. :/

Blind Rasputin posted:

I also don’t know which of the key bindings are important for the system scanner or the detailed surface scanner. I tried probe launching and had to like...fly around the planet in a circle to cover it in probes. I thought I saw someone arcing the probes into position.

Blind Rasputin posted:

I’m not entirely confused with the System scanner mini game after trying it in one moderately sized system. Is it that you can pick a frequency, like rocky bodies, or USS, and just selectively hunt for those? So if you enter a new system and need to get to its station.. you have to play this game to hunt down the stations? That seems like it could get repetitive.

I also don’t know which of the key bindings are important for the system scanner or the detailed surface scanner. I tried probe launching and had to like...fly around the planet in a circle to cover it in probes. I thought I saw someone arcing the probes into position.

I can’t tell if everything is HDR or just brighter as gently caress. Inside stations is just burning my eyes out bright. But they’ve done something to the suns and they now appear to have a shell and a core, which is cool.

Sekenr posted:

I'll check it out today, but a bit worried about exploration from vr perspective. Bindings wise and general usability (starmap is still borderline unusable in vr. Theres only so much you can put on a hotas, can anyone report?