henke on 5/9/2016 at 09:26
RE: Engineers: I've been to 5 black markets, but The Dweller still isn't unlocked for me. Despite his page saying 5/5 Black Markets visited. Am I supposed to get a message from the guy at some point?
RE: SRV: the Skimmer(drone) elimination missions I've done so far have been a cakewalk, but last night I did one where I came up against Goliath drones, and I didn't have the firepower to even take down one of them, much less all 3. They're big, beefy, and can seemingly regenerate their hull. Since there doesn't seem to be a way to upgrade the SRVs yet, I guess these missions require co-op buddies.
Malf on 5/9/2016 at 22:27
Slightly embarrassing but cool encounter tonight.
Was making my way to "The Blaster" to get my multicannon upgraded, but ran out of fuel on the way there, as I'm not familiar with my FDL's jump range yet.
Having never had the need to use them before, I popped along to (
https://www.fuelrats.com/) ask the Fuel Rats for help.
Within 5 minutes, a kindly CMDR Ma7hew had jump in to my system and transferred fuel to me via limpet. We had a chat about the game, then he got called away to rescue some other hapless eejit like me.
Now that's the kind of player interaction I like!
No charge for the service, just quick, efficient and polite. If I had the credits for the ship necessary to be an efficient Fuel Rat, I'd definitely consider joining them :)
Thirith on 6/9/2016 at 06:30
Yeah, I love that kind of emergent thing you can get in more-or-less persistent multiplayer games. :)
henke and Malf, might you be around next Sunday morning? I think I should make it then. If you're up for some coop, should we arrange a system? I'm currently at Tod "The Blaster" McQuinn's and will potter around there for a bit so I can at least get the first upgrade for my multicannons, but that shouldn't take too long.
Edit: Do I understand correctly that I won't be able to get around mining if I want to get the Engineers upgrades beyond the most basic ones?
Malf on 6/9/2016 at 09:07
Looks like it, although to be honest I'm wondering whether the benefits of higher-than-rank-one modules are worth it, especially with weapons. As long as you get the special effect you want, the rest is gravy, especially considering that while the statistical benefits are higher at higher rank, so the detrimental effects appear to be worse. I may be completely wrong here, but that's how it appears.
There's also a lot of mission board grind associated with some of the materials apparently at higher levels. Not sure I can be arsed. We'll see, but I don't think Elite necessarily lends itself to extended sessions.
Edit: And yes, I'd be up for more Elite whenever it's convenient :)
Thirith on 9/9/2016 at 11:39
Grumble. Not the best session I've had... First I pootled around Tod McQuinn's planetoid hoping to find some nickel, but obviously I need to watch a couple of YouTube videos on the wave scanner first to actually find something. Not happy yet with my HOTAS controls for the SRV either. Then I returned to Asellus Primus, exploring the unexplored systems in between, but I only progressed from ~40% to ~50% in my exploration rank. Finally, after buying a Detailled Surface Scanner (I figured that if I'm already exploring, I might as well make more money doing it), I made the mistake of jumping into a Resource Extraction Site that had one mediocre friendly and one deadly pirate... and the latter proceeded to kill me to death.
I had enough money to pay the insurance. Now I don't. If I get killed without making ~100k first, I'm kinda screwed. Hoping for some coop on Sunday, if possible, to make some money. Mainly I'm hoping to make enough to get a better power plant (4A would be nice), a better shield generator (anything better than 4E) and, if I'm extra-lucky, perhaps even an Advanced Discovery Scanner.
Malf on 10/9/2016 at 03:16
You're in luck Thirith!
I tried my hand at a High RES on Thursday night in my Fer De Lance with all my weapons modded with extra effects and came out with a nice, tidy bounty to collect of 1.5 million credits. So I think I'm getting back to pre-patch levels of earning, and as wingmates share bounties, I reckon I could make you that in no time.
Just don't shoot the good guys ;)
Fafhrd on 11/9/2016 at 06:53
After three weeks of grinding with my Imperial Rank % already at 100%, I finally got my rank up mission. I am now a Serf in the Imperial Navy. Also pretty sure if I get in a scuffle and don't die I'll rank up my combat rank, since I'm currently at 94% Mostly Harmless.
Thirith on 11/9/2016 at 12:09
Thanks to Malf for a fun session of coop bounty hunting. Also, thanks to Frontier for including loans in the game, because otherwise my "Just one more bounty and then we'll head back" would've landed me in hot water after I got destroyed (also because I sorta panicked while trying to escape and pushed the FSD button just before supercruising out of there at 4% hull integrity) without having the necessary money to pay the insurance.
After another hour of bounty hunting with Malf, I'd paid back the loan and was back at 350k credits. Good times!
Thirith on 25/9/2016 at 13:45
Question to those of you who have spent some time with the Engineers: is it possible to swap the materials the updates require between different players? Would it be possible, say, for a wing to have one person mining for materials while one or two other players protect them from pirates, and then the miner drops some materials for the others and they all go to meet the FSD wizard?
Malf on 26/9/2016 at 13:26
Swapping materials? No, I don't think that's possible. I don't believe you can drop them like you would drop cargo. However, any cargo an engineer requires should be transferable by one player jettisoning said cargo for another player in the same instance to scoop. Not sure if cargo transferred in such a way would come up as illicit or not mind you; never done it myself.
