5541

Two questions about this particular CG:

  1. Do i need to accept the CG at Clauss Port before I go to Frost Dock to pick up the goods?

  2. Is this doable in a Type-6? I don’t really have the cash for an Asp but i could trade in my Vulture for a Type-6 and fully outfit it

5542

Two questions about this particular CG:

  1. Do i need to accept the CG at Clauss Port before I go to Frost Dock to pick up the goods?

  2. Is this doable in a Type-6? I don’t really have the cash for an Asp but i could trade in my Vulture for a Type-6 and fully outfit it

5543

  1. No, you can and probably should pick up the goods at Frost Dock first. EDIT: Just make sure you sign up for the CG before selling the goods!

  2. I would imagine. Any small or medium ship with at least 20-40t or so cargo space and a good jump range is ideal, so a hauler, cobra mk iii, diamondback, asp, anything like that should be good to go. It’s a 225 Ly trek, so anything you’re comfortable doing that distance in is good.

5544

I can confirm that as of right now, the 15% bracket begins at 219t.

Edit: So shortly after I posted this, the 15% bracket moved up to 223 and then to 228. I may do another load tomorrow, but it’s unlikely. If I get the 15% bonus, super. But I think I can live with the 30% bonus :)

5545

To maximize profits Lave and Leesti are very close to Santa Muerte. You can pick up rare goods in both those systems for the return trip.

5546

Well, if you haven’t jumped in already, this is your last chance to get in on the “A Time For Giving” community goal. It’s currently midway through the last tier, which at this rate should happen sometime today or tonight. Rewards are crazy good–if you just dump 1 load of 20 personal gifts at Clauss Port, I would expect the total profit from that to be about 2M CR once the final tier is hit (currently it’s “only” 1.4M CR :)). Take 2-3 loads to get into the top 90% and you’re looking at 6M+.

Remember, expect these values to increase a notch when it’s all done.

Top 5%: 50M
Top 15% 35M
Top 30% 20M
Top 60% 10M
Top 90% 5M
Top 100% 900k

5547

Just an FYI to anyone interested: the 15% tier currently begins at 260t.

5548

There are still some aspects of Frontier’s design and approach that I’m trying to wrap my head around. I find it so odd that a year of development and an expansion pack later, weapon loadouts are still pretty much “just use lasers and multicannon”. Missiles are still more expensive, have very limited ammo, and are absolutely shitty. Why have all these weapon types when there’s clear winners? I’m a little surprised that the weapons aren’t specialized/differentiated more than they are. I really think there’s a missed opportunity there to make things a little more interesting. Maybe something will be done in the loot/crafting update?

Another area that seems out of whack is money generation. So many activities have such piddly payouts, it’d take a decade to get into one of the larger ships. And since obtaining new ships is kind of the carrot/progression of the game, it seems odd that the different activities aren’t more varied or at least viable.

Some other things stick out to me as very odd as well. Why is it that when entering supercruise or a RES, it takes a little while for entities to spawn? When I enter a RES, why don’t they populate it off the bat with some ships mining, a cop here or there, or a pirate attack? Same with supercruise. And how about caching the state of an instance (supercruise/RES/etc) for a few minutes? It’s odd to finally have SC populated, drop into a USS for a moment, then pop out to find the entire system devoid of life. I get that they’re not running a full simulation or anything, but some caching and some simple algorithms would go a long ways in making the game feel significantly less fake and artificial.

I’m always scratching my head about this stuff because Frontier obviously has some crazy attention to detail in a lot of areas of the game. The engine sounds, the look and feel of everything, the weight of the ships, driving an SRV around in different gravity. So much detail to make this a simulation, but there’s so much low-hanging fruit that would go such a long ways that it completely baffles me that they’ve largely ignored it for a year.

Anyway, a year later, I still feel like the moment-to-moment stuff in Elite is absolutely phenomenal. I love the fact that I can still get satisfaction after pulling off an incredibly smooth docking maneuver, or using a nearby gravity well to cut just enough speed and gracefully drop out of SC. I love that I can identify a ship by the sound of its engine as it buzzes by me. I am amazed at how well they’ve made the transitions between SC/space/planets feel so good without an obtrusive “Loading, please wait…” break. But why oh why is everything else so poorly done? Why is there no depth to… anything? I feel like this game is SO close to going from a great spaceship piloting simulation to a great game, but they’ve shown very little indication in actually developing things in that direction. It’s so frustrating!

5549

KevinC, you’ve hit on all of my struggles with this game, and laid them out better than i could. I desperately want to take the basic flight model, ships, graphics, sounds of E:D and put them in a game with meaningful progression and gameplay systems. I want to love this game so much but every time I try to actually get into it, it doesn’t grab me. It’s almost as if the developers are actively trying to make this game appeal to only a certain set of players. Like E:D is this club that they don’t want to be for everyone just a select few and they’re fine with that.

I actually had some time today after lunch before i had to go back to work and i thought about jumping in and trying to make some money in the current trade CG and my thinking went something like this:

“Well I’ve got about an hour maybe more, maybe that’s enough time?”

“Okay i just traded in my Vulture for a Cobra, let’s outfit it for trade and travel and get moving! Oh wait, the system i bought the ship in doesn’t have the right parts so i can’t upgrade my FSD. Shit now i gotta find a system that sells that (is that as simple as bringing up the map, filtering for the part you’re looking for and off you go? Hell no, i gotta filter for “high-tech” systems whatever the hell those are, then pick one and hope it’s got the stuff)”

“Okay well i’m 18 jumps away from where i can even start the CG so maybe i’ll find something on my way, but with all that starting and stopping it’ll take at least an hour, and then it’s 45 mins for one set cargo run, which gets me maybe 1 mil? Hmm, feels like a big time investment for not a lot of payoff”

“Well i guess that’s out, i’ll just go play some Dirt Rally or Xenoblade Chronicles X”

Unless I can carve out a good 3-4 hour chunk of time (which realistically is going to happen once a year maybe) to dedicate to this on a regular basis, there’s no viable way to progress that makes me feel like I’m doing anything worthwhile.

Again this game was just not made for me, and that’s fine I’m really glad there are a bunch of people (here and elsewhere) who get so much out of this it’s just frustrating that I can’t.

5550

And it’s done. The rewards are nice. If you contributed anything beyond the bare minimum you can expect at least 10M CR. New pilots will get a Viper Mk IV.

Top 5%: 100M
Top 15%: 50M
Top 30% 35M
Top 60% 20M
Top 90% 10M
Top 100% 900k

Meeper, hope you managed to keep a hold of your 50M!

5551

Indeed I did! Excellent!

5552

Woot! 20 million for the top 60%! Hot diggity dog! I’m riiiiich!

5553

Sitting on a nice stash of 124M now… which means I need to start thinking about buying a new ship. I won’t be selling my Asp Exporer though – it’s too darn handy.

5554

Oooo… That’s a nice amount of purchasing power you have there! Decision, decisions…

I currently have:

  1. Cobra Mk III, equipped for speed and smuggling. Total cost is about 7M CR or so.
  2. Imperial Courier, for when I feel like flying a jet fighter. Total cost 10M CR?
  3. Asp Explorer, generally kitted out for exploration. Say, 30M CR?
  4. Federal Assault Ship, my brawler, it hands down beats the vulture for sheer fun in a combat zone. Total cost is around 90M CR.
  5. Python, equipped for mining and/or volume trading community goals at outposts. Total cost around 110M CR.
  6. Imperial Cutter, for pretending I’m imperial nobility and impressing da ladies! Total cost Hahahahahahah… <whimper> <cries>…
5555

Woo! That was a nice 20M thanks for the tip!

5556

Dang! Well done, guys. I should have ran over and worked on that a bit.

I am trying to get into the 5M rank of the combat bounty CG right now and should be close. 17 hours to go, I believe.

5557

Those are some decidedly decent flying options you’ve got there!

I’ve been rocking a heavily modified Viper III for bounty hunting, so I think buying something new and shooty to replace it will be priority number one. I’ve had my eye on an FAS for a while now but the insurance cost is giving me pause.

That said, I would really like a massive cargo hauler/miner, but I figure I’m still at least 150M from being able to afford one and to kit it out appropriately. I find it interesting that you appear to be using your Python for that role. Any reason?

5558

The python has a large cargo space and a good powerplant that can keep medium mining lasers running all the time without running out of power.

It’s a nice mining ship and you only need around 60m? to buy all that.

5559

The FAS is a tank, pure and simple. It’s shields are puny, but mate them with an SCB, add armor and fill the rest of your internals with hull reinforcement packages, and you really don’t care when your shields go down. When most ships are down to 50% hull, people typically disengage and go repairs. When my FAS is down to 50% hull, I’m thinking, “A couple more anacondas before I head home”. Haven’t lost one yet. But yeah, the insurance seems high until you get used to it.

That said, I would really like a massive cargo hauler/miner, but I figure I’m still at least 150M from being able to afford one and to kit it out appropriately. I find it interesting that you appear to be using your Python for that role. Any reason?

The only reason not to fly the python at your earliest opportunity is its maneuverability. It just feels overly sluggish if you enjoy nimble craft. So I don’t pick fights with mine, even though it has excellent firepower, and great hardpoint placement. But otherwise, like a cobra Mk III, it’s one of those ships that can do it all. I use something like this build for mining, and note the slight powerplant and shield generator downgrade. Looks like the stock cost there is 115M CR, but if you can find a hull and equip it in a Li Yong-Rui system, you should be able to find a 15% discount, bringing it all down to the 100M CR range.

As a miner, the python is perfect. It’s got 200t cargo capacity, which you can fill in a couple of hours if you’re picky, faster if you’re not. You’ve got enough internals that you’re fielding 4 collector limpets at a time for speedy scooping, and still have the prospector to spy out your next rock target. The mining lasers sit on your medium hardpoints, leaving you with three large hardpoints if you get into trouble. And the shields, reinforced with boosters, are pretty damn sturdy. And while the jump range isn’t all that great when laden, it’ll get you back to a market without too many extra hops.

Should you wish to convert this to a pure hauling ship, simply swap out the refinery and limpet controllers for cargo racks, replace the mining lasers with turrets to handle the small ships that will interdict you and sit on your tail, and done.

The python really is a great ship. I just hate actually flying it. (Admittedly, maybe less so after getting used to the cutter.)

5560

How do the prospector drones work? I tried them the other day and didn’t see the point, as I could shoot the asteroid just as fast. I felt like I was missing something.