*** The Official Elite: Dangerous Thread ***

Associate
Joined
11 Sep 2009
Posts
2,257
Location
UK
Associate
Joined
22 Feb 2010
Posts
118
Location
Telford
Chakpa to Ochosia has the best Federation rank missions at the moment. I have found that if you pick up a couple of donation missions and hand them in when at 100% then refresh the board, you will see a rank mission pop up a lot quicker.

It is a short 13LY jump and both outposts are within 900Ls from the jump in points. 1 station at Ochosia and 2 stations at Chakpa, both have multi Federation factions some lots of missions with no need to board hop.

I have gone from 60% into Post Commander to Admiral in roughly 2 hours and that was with doing some scan missons inbetween to break up the grind. I was going to stop at Rear Admiral, but it was going that quick I stuck with it until I had my Admiral rank.

**Edit**
Forgot to add that you will need a mid sized ship as these are 2 outposts.
 
Last edited:
Permabanned
Joined
11 Feb 2011
Posts
2,136
I bought this on release but never really got on with it for some reason. Think I found buying and sellling a bit of a headache, made 100k and gave up. Anyway just testing the water again on account of this thread. About an hour in I travel to a random system to drop off some rocks and apparently in a nearby station there's a Viper MKIV in my ownership. Transferred it and jumped in. Random prize?
 
Associate
Joined
10 Feb 2014
Posts
1,279
Location
Plymouth, UK
Oh, does that count as the 'superpower'? Darn it. Not that I'm really bothered as I'm quite happy with my little Python, might consider engineering it but maybe I'll just potter around.
 
Soldato
Joined
2 Feb 2010
Posts
10,768
Location
East Midlands
37 jumps away from Sagittarius A on an exploration jaunt in my engineered Asp explorer. Done quite a lot of scanning, so should get a good rankings boost when I get back.

Found two unexplored earth like planets so far.

Just the small point of 600 odd jumps on the return journey :p
 
Associate
Joined
24 Oct 2004
Posts
587
Been working on dirty drives for my fleet after stockpiling enough materials, or upgrading the old grade 5 dirty drives. With the drag experimental effect (apart from the Adder) my ships now have some nice top speeds!

Clipper 610 m/s
Cutter 520 m/s
Adder 700 m/s
Ferdelance 575 m/s
I Eagle 920 m/s

Really enjoying the update to Engineers, I think it's a lot easier with the traders now.
 
Associate
Joined
8 Jul 2010
Posts
2,260
Location
Derbyshire
Just upgraded to the Asp and I really need some new thrusters or something because it handles like a drunk whale compared to my Viper MKIV :D oh well be worth it in the end.

Stoner81.
 
Permabanned
Joined
11 Feb 2011
Posts
2,136
If I remember rightly, it was a gift for early purchasing. Have fun.

Thanks. I think they did something similar with horizons and gave people a free Cobra IV. Can you not buy these ships?

I also said I haven't played in two years but the UI has changed a lot. I don't recall the 'galactic average' column for commodities being there, but that combined with the EDDB thing (thanks to whoever posted that, it's awesome) is invaluble and can make money quite easily.

I've upgraded my ViperIV, looking for some other stuff to do other than trading. Suggestions? I'd like to do a pirate mission but it recommends a wing and I've only come across like two real players.
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Mar 2007
Posts
4,484
Location
Swindon UK
37 jumps away from Sagittarius A on an exploration jaunt in my engineered Asp explorer. Done quite a lot of scanning, so should get a good rankings boost when I get back.

Found two unexplored earth like planets so far.

Just the small point of 600 odd jumps on the return journey :p

I'm also on my way back in from SagA, just under 200 jumps from Deciat hoping I can keep my AspX patched together long enough to make it. A couple of mistimed neutron scoops and the game putting me in a binary star sandwich have me down to 49% hull, the "honk" scanner gone completely and various other components somewhat scorched.

That is the only problem with exploration within ED's quirky progress/save/rebuy scheme. You could make it almost to the final touchdown, mess it up and lose several weeks worth of data and progress in the process. There are quite a few at the official forum who feel the same way but several recent threads suggesting there ought to be a better mechanism simply get hijacked by the "git gud" crowd who are also quite vocal that in their view exploration needs nerfing.

No doubt I will net a few million from my data but factor in repairs to the Asp and the pure credit return for the time is worth far less than other activities. But then that's not why we do it.

I admit my spirit did flag somewhat when I looked at the distance back which is why I headed for the neutrons. However after taking the damage and figuring the Spansh method of Alt-Tab to get the next star, manually paste it in the map plus jumping off route for fuel wasn't a good risk vs time process. So I just used the GalMap with nose cone boost enabled which is giving me a neutron about every 10 - 15 stars but more relaxing and less stopping to repair the FSD with the AFMU.

Hoping to get into Deciat Saturday evening (and strictly in Solo Play!).
 
Associate
Joined
10 Feb 2014
Posts
1,279
Location
Plymouth, UK
I've upgraded my ViperIV, looking for some other stuff to do other than trading. Suggestions? I'd like to do a pirate mission
Pirate missions are pretty hard, not done one myself but read that they usually involve a heavily defended Anaconda.

What to do.... trading is a great little start but isn't the main wage earner. Try something like jumping to a medium resource extraction site and helping the police to kill wanted ships. The trick is to let them do all the hard work and then get a few hits in before they die and as long as you do it within 10 seconds of them dying (I think that's the timeframe) you'll get the bounty :) When youve got a ton of these bounties land at a station and hand them in...money!

I'm currently unlocking some engineers that require combat bounties that are slightly different. You drop at a combat zone, go into your '4' menu and select a faction to fight for. You then have 2 groups of ships fighting each other, you are obviously on the side of the greens. Kill the reds. The trick to this one is to stick with the greens and only attack targets that have been engagaed already so the NPCs keep the aggro. Once you get an uber ship you can do what you like and take on all sorts. Once you've had your fill pop back to a station and hand in those bounties for credits!

Erm, also data delivery missions are pretty good as if you get the right stations you can pick up 20 or more mission that ask you to deliver data to another station (the same one for each mission) so you load up, fly to the other station and hand in mission. Then whilst at that other station you collect 20 more to go back to the station you just left and transfer data that way too... credits!
 
Soldato
Joined
2 Feb 2010
Posts
10,768
Location
East Midlands
I'm also on my way back in from SagA, just under 200 jumps from Deciat hoping I can keep my AspX patched together long enough to make it. A couple of mistimed neutron scoops and the game putting me in a binary star sandwich have me down to 49% hull, the "honk" scanner gone completely and various other components somewhat scorched.

That is the only problem with exploration within ED's quirky progress/save/rebuy scheme. You could make it almost to the final touchdown, mess it up and lose several weeks worth of data and progress in the process. There are quite a few at the official forum who feel the same way but several recent threads suggesting there ought to be a better mechanism simply get hijacked by the "git gud" crowd who are also quite vocal that in their view exploration needs nerfing.

No doubt I will net a few million from my data but factor in repairs to the Asp and the pure credit return for the time is worth far less than other activities. But then that's not why we do it.

I admit my spirit did flag somewhat when I looked at the distance back which is why I headed for the neutrons. However after taking the damage and figuring the Spansh method of Alt-Tab to get the next star, manually paste it in the map plus jumping off route for fuel wasn't a good risk vs time process. So I just used the GalMap with nose cone boost enabled which is giving me a neutron about every 10 - 15 stars but more relaxing and less stopping to repair the FSD with the AFMU.

Hoping to get into Deciat Saturday evening (and strictly in Solo Play!).

I do worry about making a mistake and losing week's worth of data. All it takes is to get chucked out of hyperspace between two huge stars or to screw up docking after so long away from the bubble.

I haven't seen any neutron stars on this trip as of yet. And to be honest, I think I'd steer clear of them anyway. I don't have an auto repair system on board, so I'd rather not risk it.

So I have a long old trek on my hands and I have to admit it can get a bit soul destroying sometimes. But then I have a while away from the game and come back fresh and I'm good to go. There is something therapeutic about exploring to a point, but I guess you have to be the right sort of person to do it.
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Mar 2007
Posts
4,484
Location
Swindon UK
Good news, in so far as I discovered my D-Scanner isn't broken at all, but must have switched it off in keyboard funk/mad panic trying to launch a heat sink. Bad news means there's about 200 systems I now missed honking, though I don't think I'll double back...

Just under 150 jumps to Deciat now, no more neutrons in sight so hopefully at around 30 or 40 to go (at ~34LY range) I'll start hitting the outer edge of the Bubble and touch base with my data.

After that I'll probably take a break from the game as the general sense from the official forum is that most money making opportunities at least in Solo Play, have been put to the nerf hammer. I really wanted an Anaconda before heading off to the Rim but not if the grind has become too much.
 
Back
Top Bottom