I believe either option is viable.
In my experience, well-trained slaves are just normal slaves. They must be legally purchased though. I’ve found what I presume is a bug in a couple of Anarchy systems so far, where there’s a mission to purchase slaves… which can be bought in the commodities tab! Well that’s an easy 42k thanks, but you only get it once before they presumably wise up.
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This is a great list, very useful. I can confirm that destroying the FSD can sometimes lead to ship destruction… well, unless someone else was taking out the power plant at the same time. Not sure if this is a bug or simply an intentional feedback side-effect (I’m assuming the latter).
schurem
2983
Finally got home after spending new-years with the in-laws. I am fucking stuffed. Put the kid to bed, donned the rift and have been star trekking all night long last night. That was great.
Took the Lakon type-6 (the calf) on a trip to buy up rares according to that list i posted earlier. Good money there, when I logged off at about 01:30 I was only half way down the list and had sold the stuff from the first bunch of ports at about a 75% up to 1500% markups! a 350c item went for freaking 40000c! And that hold is still stuffed with weird and wonderfull wares from all over the galaxy. Some of the items are rather illegal, often because they are highly psycho-active. I flew on without buying those because I wanted to dock safely and relaxed.
Trading rares shure makes one feel like Han Solo’s slightmore respectable. I got interdicted four or five times, but managed to ride the escape vector just fine, fuck you very much mr. wannabe pirate. I have no weapons on my lakon, just a souped up reactor and drive. You get to see a LOT of different systems and see the sky change as you make your way. Much fun and much relaxation. Just plotting a course, scooping some fuel when it’s needed and boldly go.
I personally did the takeoff and landing training missions until I could do it without turning somersaults. Maybe I overdid it, but I didn’t want to get into the game and instantly start fumbling around looking for my key bindings.
I’m using K+M and haven’t really changed the bindings at all; I find them eminently usable as-is. Obviously YMMV.
Oh actually, I did re-bind “Eject Cargo” from the End key to Shift-End. It seemed like a potentially bad mapping as it sits right under the “Open Cargo Scoop” key.
Tony_M
2985
I found it useful to copy someone elses keybindings until I was experienced enough to start having my own preferences. Heres a good setup for the Thrustmaster T Flight HOTAS, with the advantage that you can print it out. By the time you’re making your own changes to the mapping you’ll have the controls memorised.
I just checked out EDTracker (Thanks Brian). Looks terrific, I’ve ordered one. Between the T Flight and EDtracker I’m going to get off much cheaper than I originally expected. I was originally pining for the Saitek X-55 + TrackIR. But I grabbed an Amazon sale on the T Flight and I’ve been very happy with it, much better build quality and ergonomics than the flight stick I played X-Wing with back in the day.
Yeah getting the right key bindings, something you have to manually do yourself really, is a big part of the games initial learning curve issues i suspect.
To be clear on that i tried the default settings and found the craft very difficult to control/way too twitchy (this is with mouse and keyboard), i had to go into the settings and start adjusting things. Then when i added a joystick i had to manually set that up from scratch, there was no ‘plug and play’ recognition thing to help me set it up, no ‘calibration’, nothing.
I’m still not 100% sure on my current control configurations, but as i’m just starting out in the training missions can see that getting better over time. On balance i think this is the biggest ‘newbie’ issue the game has, lots of controller options but very little assistance in setting up. Maybe the gamepad is the most complete/tuned setup off the bat?
I have a couple of bounties for the Empire that I inadvertently have waiting for me if I ever find an Empire system before I die. Any subtle hints on how I should find an Empire system without cheating and looking it up online? Something within the game? If I start heading towards the Sol system, for example, which I’d planned on doing anyway, are there Empire systems that way?
You don’t need to cheat. Bring up the Galaxy Map, hit the View tab (third one along), then filter by Allegiance, Empire are the systems in red.
schurem
2989
Whoo, the rares route is going great, up well over a million now from where I set off. I reckon imma be buyin me an Asp when I get back home.
Where is this post where you’re talking about trade routes, schurem? I read somewhere that rares are most profitable a long way from where you buy them (> 170 Ly). Is this what you’re doing?
Cool.
By the way, for anyone else who found out really late: you pretty much have to switch to the mouse for the Galaxy Map. Normally I hate it when games make me switch hands between the joystick and mouse, but in this case, it works.
Also of note: yesterday I zoomed out on the Galaxy Map like I normally do, marveling at how this is basically an infinite world they’ve given us. But this time I accidentally did something different: I zoomed out again. And again. And again. And I kept zooming out. And some more. There was a nice surprise waiting. It blew my mind.
It was Santa holding a snow globe, wasn’t it.
Wow, well that was easy money lol. When it gave me 142 hours to complete the mission, I assumed I had a considerable amount of traveling ahead of me to find these slaves. Turns out I didn’t even have to leave the station. Like you said, probably a bug.
KevinC
2994
Here’s their statement regarding the server issues:
Hello,
On January 1st 2015 at 11pm GMT we had an issue with one of our databases. One of our engineers spotted this immediately and removed the database from circulation. This took around 2 hours to complete, test and make live to commanders. In this time, a relatively small number of commanders were affected by failed transactions and small losses in credits. These commanders should have received their refunds, along with a 20% bonus as in previous instances.
If you are still having problems, please create a support ticket for our customer support team via https://support.elitedangerous.com.
Finally, we do have 24/7 server engineer coverage over the holiday period to catch problems such as these. However, to further communicate these issues to commanders, we are currently working on creating a server status page where we can communicate any immediate issues or known problems. This should be live within the week.
schurem
2995
I posted a link to a frontier forum thread earlier. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=84884
The route list i’m flying is about halfway down the 1st page. It takes hours to complete. Some stations are 600k ls away from warpin. Better skip those lol.
That “View” page is interesting. Not only is there an Empire. There’s also an Alliance! I hope we get to find out more about these allegiances later within the game.
The closest Empire system was really far away. A solitary system away from the other red dots, about 150 Light Years from where I was. So I started the journey today. On the way, I found unexplored system with lots of unexplored planets. In the process of exploration, I got interdicted a lot. Luckily, I was able to win all these battles, some with the help of Federation ships. I really like this system. I guess I’ll continue my journey towards the Empire soon, but right now I don’t want to leave.
Just don’t die and lose all those lovely bounties. :)
schurem
2998
Last time I died I lost about 150k in empire bounties. That triggered some hearty curses in the schurem household, oh yes. They tend to stack up when I hunt around the Lave area that I call home.
Ahem, Brian, I noticed the OP doesn’t have nearly all of these useful links yet. I don’t want to lose this post. Especially the links to this very thread!
This is also a good post to link to Tyleroo/Brian. That’s what got me started on my journey to planets with spotted Pristine reserves.
Btw, I did make it to an Empire system and got my bounty, but more importantly on the way there, I went through an absolutely beautiful system for Mining Metal.
Seriously, this system has 3 different ringed planets with Pristine reserves, all of them Metal Rich, and one bonus one that’s “Metallic”. And the port that’s in the system is between one of these planets and its rings! So you’re really close to where the mining is, and the journey back and forth is very short and painless.
Unfortunately, when I got back to the system, it turns out their outfitting shop doesn’t have a mining laser. So come equipped! I’m checking closeby systems and I haven’t found a place yet which sells a mining laser.
The system is not mentioned in that scrapbook of good locations from the post I quoted. Just in case you don’t want to know the name, I’ll put it in spoiler tags:
name of pristine mining system
If I can find a mining laser, I’ll be back to mine a little bit more. Maybe I can upgrade my Sidewinder sooner than I was expecting.
