So I’m coming back to the game after a two year break. I didn’t get too deep into the game before, mostly doing low level combat and trading.
I was wondering what resources people more familiar with the game would suggest I check out for getting into some of the other content like mining, exobiology, and exploration. I’d like to take a shot at the basics of the different gameplay loops/styles before I start trying to get into the deeper content like engineering.
Unfortunately a lot of guides I’ve found seem to focus on maximum optimization before you even try to get into the content. I don’t want to do an engineering grind, or grind to get an FC, before I figure out if I even like the type of gameplay it’s going to make easier.
I make reference below often to searching for things. This is primarily done through inara, a 3rd party website. It can sink to your elite profile and makes life easier. I also use ED Discovery (windows app) that uploads to EDSM. That can be useful for exploration but I don’t really use that site actively. I like the stats and the feeling I’m adding my mark to the game’s galaxy. Not sure if you’re on pc or console.
I liked using some of the early engineers as my guide as to what to do. Some need you to travel (the Maia one? Farseer?), so that was my call to make a basic exploration ship and try it out. Everyone loves the DBX (with good reason) but I’ve been clinging to my Dolphin, my 2nd ship with slightly less jump range. I just love the look and the sounds of S-K ships.
Someone else needed combat bounties, so then I did that loosely. Pirates trickle in at nav beacons but search out a compromised Beacon for steadier flow. Do NOT add 1t of juicy cargo to call them over to you. They will gang up very fast and you won’t be ready for the medium and large ships coming at you. A medium ship full of lasers will probably vaporize small ships in a few moments. Watch your heat though. While inefficient after engineering, I do love my Krait&Barrels with 4 multi cannons. The one laser does slow me down with ships that have prismatic or bi-weave shields. I added the heatsink engineering effect or whatever, so I can lay on the laser all day and just get colder as long as it’s hitting.
Similar thing with the one that specifies you must mine some mineral. I think I spent one trip in a cobra before building a medium miner. Can’t remember which. I eventually built an orca or beluga and found that any size ship takes 1-2 hours of gameplay to fill. The bigger cargo holds come with more/larger lasers for surface mining and more limpets. Not sure how it scales with core mining. It’s been a while since I mined but that was calm and enjoyable during my first billion credits. I just searched for stations paying like 3x market average and searched for sources less than 20ly or so (full cargo can really hurt range).
For credits, my go-to has been robigo passenger runs or I think ceos data runs. While it’s grindy, I’ll just go and play that until I get bored. No particular credit goal, just a consistent source of money.
Long story short, I’ll use guides to figure out how to min/max my current activity as best as I can, but not much more. I don’t have a FC after 1000 hours. I could have, but then it would have been parked for about 2 years now anyway. The most min/max activity I think I’ve ever done was I stumbled into a squadron and did some wing missions. Made like 1bil in a few hours. It was more fun to talk to these players than it was mulling around with some stubby cargo runs from a station to a FC and vice versa somewhere else.