3701

During the 90s, I made the mistake of buying Logitech joysticks. They both gave me that problem JMR. From then on, I stuck to Microsoft joysticks, which never gave me that problem.

3702

emphasis added. You do it to yourself m8. Hold it loosely. Finesse it. You will fight better because your aim will be better if you don’t ‘death grip’ your stick. Learn to fly with just your fingertips.

3703

…and off course the ‘feel’ and ‘feedback’ of a stick greatly aids in this. I don’t know which are best on PC, i always found PC sticks not as good as the ones i used to have on my Amiga, but you can sure throw a tonne of money on a PC stick, so maybe you get what you pay for?

You could try using a control pad or going with keyboard&mouse for a while, atleast then you have other tools you can use to carry on playing without increasing your problem?

3704

I finally made it to some combat zones. Neto and Furbade were both in a state of civil war last night. While the action was fun, the rewards were disappointing. 3k for any ship killed. Whether it was an eagle or an anaconda I got the same 3k. Of course I didn’t really get 3k because in neither case was there a station owned by the faction I was fighting for, so I can’t cash in the bonds. Combat zones don’t see very worthwhile. Does anyone know if at least fighting in a combat zone give one a major reputation bonus with the chosen faction?

3705

Yeah, for the risk you take in those, there should be better rewards. They are pretty neat, though.

Perhaps some increased bonds for bigger and/or higher skilled ships or some sort of system that opens up other rewards for continued support of a certain faction or something. I have a blast in them in my Viper, but not sure I would want to risk rolling into one with a really expensive ship unless I really felt comfortable with it, and even then probably not in Open play due to the risk vs reward of them.

3706

You should be able to turn in the bonds at any station in the system, regardless of who controls the station. I’ve even turned them in on stations controlled by the faction I fought against. You can also get combat missions from the bulletin boards to destroy ships in conflict zones, if you want to increase your pay cheque. The missions are often available in neighboring systems, so they can be used to locate systems with active conflicts.

3707

It seems to me that combat bonds are intended as a side benefit to conflict zone action rather than the aim, at least in theory. It’s clearly far more efficient, credits-wise, to go bounty hunting at nav beacons or especially resource extraction sites. The latter by an order of magnitude. The problem is that it doesn’t seem like what I feel is the primary purpose (affecting the balance of power) is working very well. Some of it is known bugs which have fixes inbound, but it’s hard to tell if that’s going to be enough to make it feel like you’re making a difference as an individual.

3708

I think that’s why they’re rolling out the community goal system in 1.1. It will be interesting to see how that pans out.

3709

I have a problem.

There are a couple things I still want to do in this game – buy a Cobra, trade, mine, and try out other weapons. I figured I’d start with the Cobra, use its cargo space to trade up to mining gear, then mine up to new weapons. But I only have about 100k credits right now. (I’m not sure how much my scharmers-spec Sidewinder would get me.) While I enjoy playing this game, the only reason I’d be playing is to “grind” up to the Cobra. That makes it feel like a waste of time. It bothers me on principle, or maybe I’m not having as much fun as I think.

Should I wait 6 months to see if they add more content? I have Falcon 4 BMS waiting for me in my backlog to make use of my new HOTAS…

3710

It really doesn’t take long to get a basic Cobra, especially if your Sidewinder is combat capable. You could do it in an evening of bounty hunting. Fitting that Cobra out to be effective at combat is another matter.

3711

A new ship may prolong your interest. You can get a basic mining setup in an Adder for cheap, it’s a reasonable stepping stone to Cobra.

3712

This is a lovely game, but it’s not worth carpal tunnel syndrome. If you’re getting pain, lay off the joystick and try a different input system. Elite is quite playable with mouse and keyboard, or with an XBox controller, both of which are easier on the hands, or at least they are in my case.

3713

I’m back into it again after a nice run in the Resource Extraction Site. It’s tense flying around on the dark side of a planet where I can’t see the asteroids. I was treated to a neat view when the sun came up over the planet.

Usually I get pissed off in the RESs because I won’t get credited for a kill or an NPC will fly right across my beam lasers. That eventually happened, but it wasn’t until I racked up more than 100k in bounties. I flew back to cash them in only to come under attack from a live player. He let me live with 5% health (note to self: can’t outrun Vipers) so I’ll have to be nice the next time I see a wanted player. I wimped out and logged back in under Solo mode. No way I was going to waste my progress quest proceeds.

I need to move on from that area anyway. Too many people.

3714

…and then I had three straight bad runs, including one nice cat-and-mouse with an Anaconda behind an asteroid until I accidentally shot at the orange square thing instead of the orange triangle thing.

Stupid game.

3715

I had a run of bad luck today. Was trying to make nice with the Alioth Independents so as they would give me their nice little permit to the Alioth system, and took a pirate-hunting mission in Ethgreze. Things were going well until one of the pirates jumps away. I go to check the contacts tab to see if the other ship I scanned before the scrum was wanted, when boom, one of the system authority vessels that had been “helping out” plows into me at full speed. I instantly went from full health, full shields, not so much as a scratch on the paint to dead, dead, would you like to rebuy your vessel for 1.3M credits? With the lost cartography, bounties, the cargo in my hold and the pair of missions that failed because of it, this little debacle set me back over 1.4M I’m sure. Grrrr…

3716

Moving from a sidewinder you should be able to get to Cobra by using a Hauler as a stepping stone.

3717

Hey ConVurt, I’m in the same area as you. You play group or open? Won’t be playin much this weekend, got a busy schedule as well as a key to a closed weekend beta test of another game :D

3718

I’ve mostly been playing solo, since scanning systems and running trade rings doesn’t really scream “multiplayer” to me, but I’m open to new things. Drop me a PM when you’re itching to play.

3719

Bummer on the lost ship, conVurt. I was going to amend my earlier post about ship loss costs that a person should be able to avoid getting their ship blown up if they were skilled, but I had forgotten about that case where NPCs accidentally can ram into you and insta kill you.

I believe my next step will be to load up on some scanners and do more exploration when I do my next 75-100 LY jump to the next system to hang out in. I am curious, though, what do the surface scanners add? Do you go and scan each planet and/or sun in the system in addition to the normal scanning of them to gain more cartography data to sell making it possible to earn more per system?

3720

[QUOTE=Kelan;3705694 I am curious, though, what do the surface scanners add? Do you go and scan each planet and/or sun in the system in addition to the normal scanning of them to gain more cartography data to sell making it possible to earn more per system?[/QUOTE]

yup. can take forever but makes more C. just dont bother with the whitish grey balls. check em out in system scan before you start making detailed surface scans.