How to Find a Ship Yard

[Slartibartfast]

I'm relatively new to Elite and while I've read several "getting started guides" and have invested a reasonable number of hours I'm still finding it incredibly difficult to workout what to do.

My current issue is that I've decided it's time to upgrade my ship and I'm trying to work out were to go. After many hours in my trusty SideWinder I've managed to accrue some 3.5Mil and it's probably well and time I bid the old girl fair well, the only problem is that I'm not sure how to find myself a shipyard from which to buy a replacement.

I'm currently out at a system called KHUN (I came out this way after being invited by an Engineer Contact). KHUN itself has two orbital satellite type space salutations and the one ground station where the Engineering contact is located, none of which have a ship yard (which isn't surprising). Most of the systems around here seem to be uninhabited and none of them have large stations which one might expect to house a ship yard. There is a near by system with a population of a little over 200,000 but when I went to it I couldn't find any stations at all.

So my question, to prevent me from hopping aimlessly from system to system, is how does one identify systems that are likely to house ship yards?

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Space outposts rarely if ever have shipyards. You need to fly to a space station (one that has a mailslot entrance and landing pads inside it) to have a shipyard.

Not all shipyards have every ship available in game.

[Slartibartfast]

Thanks Dolphin.

I'm aware I'm not in a suitable system.
My question is how do I identify systems that have (or at least are likely to have) such
a space station?

In the galaxy map I've been clicking on system after system, buying cartographic information for them but when I look at their solar system maps not seeing any that have space stations. I'm wanting to know how I can identify a system that is likely to have what I'm after.

As a thought I was kind of assuming solar systems that have such space stations will likely have larger populations. Is there a way to only show populated systems or something?

[Slartibartfast]

Arr, found one.

Just had to keep clicking and I eventually clicked on a system with a population of 4 million.
I found it was a lot quicker to use the mouse to click systems and read the 'fly-out' menu than slide the cursor over each with the joystick.

I also found that all 'yellow' stars I clicked on were populated where as only a few of the 'grey' ones I clicked on were, so by sticking to yellow stars I eventually found a highly populated one and sure enough, it had one of those 'golf-ball' stations in it.
(:

[Phoenix]

You do know that you can use the galaxy map to filter out inhabited systems, right? I'd suggest you take a look at the different options and figure out what they are good for before blindly flying to a system thatm ight or might have what you are looking for.

[shiny_dirk]

if you want to find anything anywhere close to your current position - https://eddb.io/station is usually the solution. give it your location as the reference system and tell it what you are looking for. works with materials on landable planets, too.

[Slartibartfast]

Originally posted by shiny_dirk:

You do know that you can use the galaxy map to filter out inhabited systems, right?

No, I didn't realise that. Guess that's what I'm asking ;)

I have been able to find that you can filter out systems that don't have an alliance, which seems to remove all the unpopulated systems, though it does also filter out some populated ones as well. I have also noticed there is a "Population" option in the "sort by size" drop-down and you can then adjust the 'min' and 'max' sliders however moving the min slider one notch up from the bottom didn't seem to remove the unpopulated systems.

Edit: Now I have just noticed that moving the 'min' slider up one notch _does_ remove the unpopulated systems but it takes a loooooong time. Like several minutes after you move the slider the unpopulated systems finally disappear, so I thought it meant something else.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Just a businessman hint for buying ships and modules: if you fly to any star system, controlled or exploited by Lee Yong-Rui power - you can buy them at a nice 15% discount from a normal price. Fly to Lembava, Goldstein Port, for example.

[Slartibartfast]

Originally posted by shiny_dirk:

if you want to find anything anywhere close to your current position - https://eddb.io/station is usually the solution

Huh, yup. That is exactly what I was after. As it was I ended up finding the third one on the list by my own random methods but looks like this tool would have delivered it to me directly ;)

[TiberiuS]

Originally posted by Slartibartfast:

Originally posted by shiny_dirk:

if you want to find anything anywhere close to your current position - https://eddb.io/station is usually the solution

Huh, yup. That is exactly what I was after. As it was I ended up finding the third one on the list by my own random methods but looks like this tool would have delivered it to me directly ;)

You can also look for high tech systems with high population (you can filter for both in the galaxy map). High tech has usually lots of outfitting and ships, and high populations makes it even better.

[Slartibartfast]

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

if you fly to any star system, controlled or explored by Lee Yong-Rui power - you can buy them at a nice 15% discount from a normal price.

Yeah, I did read that in one of the beginner guides I was following (though I think it's actually "Li Yong-Rui" (as apposed to "Lee..."), but couldn't find myself a ship yard of any sort, let alone one controlled by Li Yong-Rui. Now that I know what I'm doing, yes I would have been better of hunting down a Li-Shop, though according to 'shiny_dirk's tool the nearest Li-Shop is a little over 100 light years away.

[Slartibartfast]

Originally posted by TiberiuS:

You can also look for high tech systems with high population (you can filter for both in the galaxy map). High tech has usually lots of outfitting and ships, and high populations makes it even better.

Arr, nice.
I had actually read that High-Tech systems were the best for ship-yards but couldn't work out how to filter for them. I could find the 'Technology' trading routes but there were none anywhere near me. Now I see the High-Tech listing under Economics and yes, there was a suitable system just 20 light years from me.



- Man, there is a lot to learn but I must say I am impressed with the responsiveness of this forum.

Thanks heaps guys,
(: (:

[Elder of Time]

this is the best site to find modules ships etc.
https://eddb.io/station

[CasualGerman]

How can one have 200 hours in a sidewinder or better yet dont know where to buy ships. Were you never in a big station and actually looked at the board where you can access the station services

[ZombieHunter]

Shipyards exist on all stations that have a round icon on the contacts screen. They are also round or octagon type icon on the system map. Almost no outposts have a shipyard. For planets all large city type icons also have a shipyard but the smaller post and factory ones usually do not. Check the system map. Planet bases icons are the most difficult ones to use to judge whether or not there is a shipyard b/c they don't seem to follow any set pattern like the space station icons do.

[Slartibartfast]

Originally posted by Hitler von Nazaret:

How can one have 200 hours in a sidewinder...

I've played a reasonable number of hours but no where as many as 200!

The reason my stats are showing 200 was due to my keeping leaving my account logged in by accident. When I start Elite: Dangerous from the Steam icon in the system tray a small 'floating launcher' program opens and I click the PLAY button, which actually opens the game proper (I assume this is what everybody dose). The issue is that when I close the game I'm playing I was often leaving the 'floating launcher' program running, without realising it was still logging hours, hence the 200h. So while I'll readily admit to being incompetent at this, I'm not quite 200h incompetent ;)

By the way I'm now piloting a Class-6 Transporter and working out how to use 'eddb.io' to plot a "trade loop", so you know, I am progressing...