homepage Forums Miscellaneous Outer Space Simulation & Combat Games Elite Dangerous Tips for a first timer.

Hi guys, I'm thinking of picking up Horizons this week as it does look like a decent game. I realise I am a little late to the party but have been watching a few YT videos to try and get a handle on what it's all about and thought the planetary landings look kinda cool.

If you had one tip to give a new player what would it be?

Thanks,

Mick.

Depends on what you want to do, really.

Tips for a miner would be different from a bounty hunter. Totally polar opposites.

Best tip though --- don't sweat the money. Do what you want to do, do what you think is fun. Money/credits is easy enough to come by... at least for the first part although it won't seem like it.

Good advice Ice.
Money IS everything but for me the fun is accumulating it in all the various ways you can. Must be at least a half dozen.
And you don't need all that much to set yourself up nicely in almost any career. After that the money takes care of itself.

My usual start is to take my Sidewinder, get in on some cheap police-action bounty kills, and buy a Cobra Mk III.
After that the world (or universe in this case) is your oyster. You can start in any career path, and switch it up, in that ship.

Plenty of experts here in all the career possibilities (I am not one of them) so just ask. Friendly and helpful bunch here.

I am a relative noob but would advise the same as dih. Do the training videos and watch the tutorial videos to get the basics. Don't worry about beating the combat training missions. The first canister shooting mission in the asteroid belt is a good way to practice thruster controls.

When you start the game go to the nearest nav beacon and poach kills from the police.

Don't rush to upgrade from your starting sidewinder too quickly. It is very cheap to rebuy if you die while learning.

There is a lot to learn about how the basics work that isn't in the tutorials so there is no hurry to move on to more expensive ships.

Once you get a Cobra or maybe an Adder a good way to try something new and earn a wodge of cash is a rare trading community goal.

Thanks guys,

I am mostly interested in the exploration side of it, with some trading thrown in as well and not really that fussed about the fighting side of it TBH.

Hoping to be able to get a nice half decent ship and just head off in one direction. Some of the screenies I have seen in the screenshot section here are pretty darn cool.

I am really interested in anything remotely to do with space and astronomy so the thought of going checking out some Nebulas and other goodies and finding some cool planets to land on sounds like my cup of tea.

I will pick it up midweek so expect to see some noobish questions inbound.... .... so the kind offer to ask questions really is appreciated.

Cheers,

Mick.

If you are interested in exploring, the cheapest option I think is the Hauler. At 2.55M Cr., it can take you 21.59 LY per jump and a total of 105.78LY distance before needing to re-scoop fuel.

Check out Hauler fit here. Advanced Discovery Scanner and Detailed Surface Scanner is there for a proper start to exploring and reaping the rewards of sight-seeing.

Next step would be the Cobra. At 8.3M Cr., 24.22LY per jupm and a total of 140.28LY before needing to re-scoop.

Check out Cobra fit here.

I think the end-goal would be an Asp Explorer. My current hauler/smuggler Asp fit gets me 24.35-27.88LY per jump and a total of 445.1LY before needing a re-scoop, but this is at 26M Cr. The Asp Explorer itself starts at 6.66M Cr. so a bit of savings would be required.

However, like I said, don't sweat the money. If you don't know how to start saving up for the Hauler, give me a heads up and I'll drop some canisters of Palladium your way. All you need to do is understand how to fly your ship, understand how to fit your ship (Sidewinder at this point), and understand how to operate the cargo hatch and scoop canisters the old-fashioned way. Don't worry, you'll soon be working with Collector Limpet drones...

*looks at DIH*

Exploration can be a big part of your career. A couple of folks went out into the black and were literally gone on their trip for 6 months. Of course how far out you go is up to you.

Unfortunately your starter ship (Sidewinder) is hardly made for that nor is it a real trader. Combat bounty is the quickest, and probably easiest way, to start some kind of cash flow to get a ship capable of exploring.
I am hardly the expert but I think I can safely say you won't do much serious exploring in the Sidewinder but perhaps one of the old hands here can correct me.

Hehe...I got almost 6 months in. I'm practically a veteran sir.
It's just that I...uh...stretch the game boundries...yea...pushing the limits of...uh...the simulation. Yea - that's it!

I'm on my way back from the core in a Type 6. She also makes a pretty good explorer. Here's a Midrange build:

http://coriolis.io/outfit/type_6_transpo...anet%20Explorer

That's the interesting bit about exploring... if you're just "going out," you don't really need massive jump range. Just enough to get to the next star. Heck, if you have a 20LY jump range and you have a star at 5LY, 10LY, and another at 20LY, you don't want to go straight to the 20LY one without going through the first two. It is, after all, EXPLORING. So just enough jump range to get to the next star. I think the important part is a bigger fuel tank, in case you come across a string of non-scoopable stars. That way, you can be "independent" for quite some time.

However, on the "way back," you might want as good a jump range as you can get. Makes the trip back easier.

Interestingly, exploring can give good credits. I carried an advanced discovery scanner with me on my Robigo runs and just dropping a ping on each system, after about 5 runs, I sold my data for about 3M credits. I would say a proper explorer would've gotten more due to scanning planets and such. Not as lucrative in terms of Cr./Hr. compared to other activities, but still good money.

I remember one of the guys here saying he was on his way back to human-inhabited space and he "only" had 18,000+ LY to go!

^^ while that's true to a point, there are plenty of areas of the galaxy, especially as you start going above or below the ecliptic plane, or farther out towards the arms, that will give most ships with a jump range under 30 LY plenty of trouble. And there are still scores and scores of stars that are out of the range of an exploration-rigged Anaconda, even with the full FSD jump boost. This is concerning a lot of the hardcore explorers who are searching the Formidine Rift for anything that might have been snuck in with the last few updates (read Elite: Reclamation to see why efforts have been focused here).

In addition, while you can get most places with a ~20 LY jump range, it's going to take you a mind-numbingly long time to traverse large distances, just because you'll be spending so much time in a jump-refuel jump-refuel cycle.

Thanks for the tips guys, keep em coming.

I was wondering, as I am pretty late in getting into this are there still stars and planets to be discovered? I realise there is a helluva lot of stuff out there and it is a big galaxy but there are also a lot of Elite players who have been exploring since the game launched.

As I will mostly be doing exploration, the thought of finding new Planets and Stars which I could be the first to find and possibly name is really what is attracting me to this.

Surely there must still be some unexplored regions left, but are they in short supply, or is space that large we would be here for some time yet filling the in game galaxy with named places?

Mick.

There are millions of stars as yet unexplored. They are all named at present, based on their region of space and then following the usual formatting for binary stars, planets, and moons.

What you can get, outside the pleasure of exploring them, is a "First Discovered by" tag applied to a system. You can get these by completing your exploration, then returning to a station to sell your exploration data. A few hours after having sold all your data, those tags with your name will be out there for you and others to find in the future.

Currently, there is no way to see a list of systems you have a name tag on. Perhaps on day. In the mean time, if it matters to you, simply write down the system names, and you can search for them again using the Star Map.

Thanks adlabs6, thats put my mind at ease, good idea to write any down I might find.

Mick.

Mick, here's what I use to keep track of where I've been:

Captain's Log

In addition, there are lots of other tools, guides, and info that can be found here.

Really? That's good info, thanks for sharing!

No problem- I started my run to the core above the ecliptic plane, and very quickly ran out of stars within jump range (28.7 LY). Had to backtrack a couple hundred light years to find a dense enough section to work through.

Downloaded the game from Steam today and man what a beautiful game it is. I have been playing for a few hours now but still have not earned squat, lol.

I've mostly just been arsing around though just to get a feel for the controls and the game interface. Obviously got loads to learn but I think I am going to have a lot of fun with this title, just trying to land on planets and admiring the gorgeous view is good enough for now.

Mick.

Well, like I said, don't sweat the money. You can do that later on

Check out what you can do with the game.... unfortunately, the starter Sidewinder isn't really good for very much. Once you've decided what you want to do for the short term, we can give you more specific advice.