What's the deal with Elite:Dangerous?

[Red Storm]

How do you get insurance for your ship? I'm still flying the starter ship, but I was just wondering where the insurance option is located.

 

[QuantumPion]

How do you get insurance for your ship? I'm still flying the starter ship, but I was just wondering where the insurance option is located.

There is no insurance to buy. If you die, when you come back you get offered to rebuy the ship you lost for 10% of the price plus modules. If you can't afford that, then it's lost for good and you're back to a sidewinder. So always have at minimum 10% of the cost of your ship in your bank balance.

 

[Red Storm]

There is no insurance to buy. If you die, when you come back you get offered to rebuy the ship you lost for 10% of the price plus modules. If you can't afford that, then it's lost for good and you're back to a sidewinder. So always have at minimum 10% of the cost of your ship in your bank balance.

Ah ok, makes sense. Thanks.

Edit: So what's a good 2-way trade run for a Sidewinder with only 4 cargo capacity?

 

[SLU Aequitas]

Ah ok, makes sense. Thanks.

Edit: So what's a good 2-way trade run for a Sidewinder with only 4 cargo capacity?

Whatever you can trade on your way to doing a light hauler run. They pay out like 5-7k + whatever margin you can make on the other 3 cargo.

Also, pro-tip: get rid of your pulse lasers, it increases your jump range. Also, in case you haven't been doing it so far, set 4 pips to engine, 2 to system (shields), and when you enter a system, aim just outside the dock area, boost (afterburner), then immediately toggle Flight Assist off, which keeps you at max speed the entire time.

 

[cytg111]

same as star citizen, if we're lucky it will be delayed enough to get born with occulus rift support.

 

[QuantumPion]

Ah ok, makes sense. Thanks.

Edit: So what's a good 2-way trade run for a Sidewinder with only 4 cargo capacity?

The best tip I've heard to getting started is go to LP98-132, visit unidentified signal sources until you find one with a gold drop. Scoop up the gold and sell it at Freeport. You can earn ~$18k this way in one go, although it's risky. But if you die, you don't really lose anything.

 

[Red Storm]

The best tip I've heard to getting started is go to LP98-132, visit unidentified signal sources until you find one with a gold drop. Scoop up the gold and sell it at Freeport. You can earn ~$18k this way in one go, although it's risky. But if you die, you don't really lose anything.

Hmm, actually not a bad idea.

Last night I was leaving a station, I believe in Morgus, and everyone was attacking a wanted Anaconda, so I joined in with my little Sidewinder. I guess I was lucky that the ship was almost gone, I landed the killing blow nabbing a 9k bounty, and also getting a fine for shooting near the station, but I was able to immediately go back in and dock, pay my fine and end up 8400 credits richer.

 

[Mogadon]

same as star citizen, if we're lucky it will be delayed enough to get born with occulus rift support.

People have been using Occulus Rift with Elite since alpha; support was released at the second alpha patch, I believe, and has been continuously improved since.

There's plenty of folks now using both DK1 and DK2.

I think support for this, and other controllers / hardware, is pretty close to the dev's heart in this product. They've made a great effort to support OR, TrackIR and various flight stick systems OOB, to increase the immersion factor.

 

[Red Storm]

Are ship prices the same everywhere? Getting close to 100k+ credits and have my eye on the Viper. I've been doing nothing but scavenging and hauling goods and I can't wait to do some combat.

Does your current ship's value count towards buying a new ship?

 

[Mogadon]

Are ship prices the same everywhere? Getting close to 100k+ credits and have my eye on the Viper. I've been doing nothing but scavenging and hauling goods and I can't wait to do some combat.

Does your current ship's value count towards buying a new ship?

Yeh, you get trade-in value for your ship(s).

I doubt ship prices are the same everywhere. They may be now depending on specific testing but will certainly not be in release.

Check this doc out on design decisions. It's long but pretty eye-opening re. what the game wants to be and mechanics behind it:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/230681554/Elite-Dangerous-the-Beginning-Early-Game-Designs-2014

 

[Ferzerp]

I am tempted to pick this up, but heavy penalty PvP is not my cup of tea. I played eve for a while and could never get in to anything except for high sec mission running because the cheap expendable ship play style didn't appeal to me (I had slowly worked my way up to multi-billion isk loadout ships, and losing one would mean the loss of months of play).

How is that dynamic in this game?

 

[SLU Aequitas]

I am tempted to pick this up, but heavy penalty PvP is not my cup of tea. I played eve for a while and could never get in to anything except for high sec mission running because the cheap expendable ship play style didn't appeal to me (I had slowly worked my way up to multi-billion isk loadout ships, and losing one would mean the loss of months of play).

How is that dynamic in this game?

It's not that heavy, you pay 10% of your ship's value to get an identical one back.

 

[Ferzerp]

Including weapons, etc?

 

[Red Storm]

Including weapons, etc?

I don't believe weapons are included, but that's a guess.

The Viper is a lot of fun, fast and agile. Anyone try missile launchers yet? The ammo is ridiculously expensive, 10k for only 12? Gotta go do more killing to make that worth while.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

Including weapons, etc?

I don't believe weapons are included, but that's a guess.

The Viper is a lot of fun, fast and agile. Anyone try missile launchers yet? The ammo is ridiculously expensive, 10k for only 12? Gotta go do more killing to make that worth while.

Yes, it's total value of ship, including all outfitting. Even for an anaconda that's like, what, 800k ish? You can make 400k per trade run with a lakon 6

 

[Mogadon]

I am tempted to pick this up, but heavy penalty PvP is not my cup of tea. I played eve for a while and could never get in to anything except for high sec mission running because the cheap expendable ship play style didn't appeal to me (I had slowly worked my way up to multi-billion isk loadout ships, and losing one would mean the loss of months of play).

How is that dynamic in this game?

So you got a couple of options with this game:

- Online - play in an instance of the full universe
- Group / private - play with a select group of friends in and instance of the full universe
- Solo - play single player with no PvP interaction

The basic premise is that all options are interchangeable. So you may play solo for a while, take the same character and jump into online and then hook up with a group of buddies in private and only with them vs. NPCs.

It's a pretty interesting model, definitely still be refined and this is very much beta; don't look at what you see now and think it reflects release.

The biggest factor vs. something like EVE is that this is instanced. So, from what i've read, the maximum number of players per instance is 32 and all other stuff is NPC, it sounds a bit weird but may well work. You should check out the forums for detail, still trying to work it out myself.

In short though, if you want to have the option to not be at the mercy of fully kitted out real-life players, you can do solo or group and never have to worry about that stuff.

That's my understanding from a couple of days of play.

I did back the game fully though as I'm a long time Elite and Elite Frontier player from the original products.

 

[Markbnj]

The biggest factor vs. something like EVE is that this is instanced. So, from what i've read, the maximum number of players per instance is 32 and all other stuff is NPC, it sounds a bit weird but may well work. You should check out the forums for detail, still trying to work it out myself.

That is a little bit odd, but I honestly don't care that much about online play, although it could potentially be awesome. I just want an immersive single player space trading, exploration, and combat RPG that has interesting ship physics, ships I can actually inhabit, worlds I can visit, and thousands of systems to explore. Is that really so much to ask?

 

[Red Storm]

Now flying a Lakon Type 6. Don't see myself going up any higher, gonna do some trading so that I can afford a nice Viper setup and then go back to the Viper which is currently my favorite ship (so fast and agile!).

 

[QuantumPion]

Yeah that's what I did, I didn't feel like grinding for hours to get a Lakon 9 or Anaconda when the Viper is pretty much the best fighter available. Just get around 1 million so you can get the best armor with some left over in case you lose your ship due to the replacement bug.

Quad cannons is my favorite weapon set up so far. I can 1-shot sidewinders, 2-3 shot cobras and vipers, and it does enough damage to scare off anacondas. It's basically like a shotgun - high damage, short range, with a little spread which makes a hit more likely. The main advantage to cannons/multicannons is that they only require minimum power to weapons so the rest can go to engines, and you can fire continuously. Lasers require max power to fire continuously (i.e. when chewing up an anaconda's ass) and overheat pretty fast.

The railgun seemed kind of crap - uses way too much power. Just use cannons instead. The only advantage of rail gun over cannon is that it is instant hit like a laser, but it has a 1 second charge time before each shot which makes hitting long distance targets pretty unlikely anyway.

Multicannons are ok but not very strong. Good noob weapon, in gimbal form.

 

[Red Storm]

Yeah I like cannons as well, though my setup had two gimbal pulse lasers (for shields) and then two C4 cannons, but I have thought of trying out the all cannon setup. Muticannons are fun to use, but the ammo costs a lot more than cannons so just not worth it.

Is there any way to manually reload weapons?

 

[QuantumPion]

Yeah I like cannons as well, though my setup had two gimbal pulse lasers (for shields) and then two C4 cannons, but I have thought of trying out the all cannon setup. Muticannons are fun to use, but the ammo costs a lot more than cannons so just not worth it.

Is there any way to manually reload weapons?

No idea, would be nice though.

I was using 2 lasers and 2 cannons for a while but found it is way better to just use cannons. Cannons do way more damage and if you are good enough to use 2, there's no reason not to use 4. Against an Anaconda, it would take like 30 seconds of constant firing to take down their shields with two lasers. But it only takes 2 bursts with quad cannons. Hull takes a lot more punishment than shields.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

I went full space trucker. Just got my Lakon Type 9 last night (would have had it earlier but lost about 400k on a trade run when I went afk to check on my kid, came back to find my ship destroyed from a random interdiction on my way to Beagle Landing :'( ). 450k+ trade runs right now, should have my 'Conda this weekend

 

[SLU Aequitas]

Aaaaaand I got my 'Conda this morning, plus a couple mil in the bank. Going to go troll...I mean save the Federation distress beacon now.

 

[futurefields]

I went full space trucker. Just got my Lakon Type 9 last night (would have had it earlier but lost about 400k on a trade run when I went afk to check on my kid, came back to find my ship destroyed from a random interdiction on my way to Beagle Landing :'( ). 450k+ trade runs right now, should have my 'Conda this weekend

I assume you were playing online then is this game able to be paused in single player mode?

 

[SLU Aequitas]

Honestly don't know, however you can just quit and it will autosave your progress , including location.