When is too early to go to the headquarters?

[Eriane]

I saved 2mil credits, I have a a reasonably upgraded cobra (insurance roughly 40k), and I don't have rank other than for deliveries. I meant to do bounties next but accidentally went a bit too far on the map so I'm now on my way to the federation HQ.

Most missions are too high level for me everywhere I go. I am doing cartography but it doesn't really sell for much, I only made 100k so far from it.

[Breytac]

If you by Federation HQ you mean Sol, you will need a permit to enter the system. A Fed rank of Petty Officer is required to get the permit. 100k seems a bit low for exploration. The best star classes to explore are F,G and K class stars (I also do A class, but that's personal preference) as they have the best chance for terrformables, earth-likes and water worlds. And it's never too early or too late to get the Sol permit, Elite is a sandbox after all.

[Eriane]

Ah okay, thank you! I will look up a guide on how to get a permit since I thought I had to go to the HQ for one. You saved me a lot of time lol

[Mousey]

Only 100k for exploration? It pays more the further out you go. Discover whole systems, fully map planets that are worth a hoot.
My last trip was a mere 5000 LY out and I got more than 40 mil in credits when I got back.
I am currently 10,963.71 LY years from home on this trip.
When I get back I should be elite in exploration.
Anyway, good exploring, OP. Hope to see you in Sol soon.
😁

[Breytac]

Also, don't forget there's a double federation rank event happening right now due to the fact the Federation won the Golconda community goal. The Sothis and Ceos data run used to be good for gaining Federation rank (take a ship that can land on a small pad, one of the stations is an outpost and only has small landing pads).

[Eriane]

Cool, thanks!

[Martok-Worf]

Sell your Cobra
Buy a Hauler
Deck it out for about 30ly jump range with a nice fuel scoop
Use: http://edtools.ddns.net/
Go to "Road to Riches" tab
Enter the system you are in
Set your max distance you want to travel
Hit "Get Route"
Go to the first System
Open up your system map
Edtools tells you which points you want to scan example: "4" under the planets column means the 4th point in the system map B1 means Section B point 1 and so on


You'll bring a fortune comparitively to what you have done so far and pretty quickly, I tried this out this morning and did it for about 30 minutes made 1.8Mil. You can stay in your Cobra if you like if you have it decked out to go to about 30ly but you want around that for ease and speed.

[Thermal Lance]

Originally posted by TeaEarlGreyHot:

Sell your Cobra
Buy a Hauler
Deck it out for about 30ly jump range with a nice fuel scoop
Use: http://edtools.ddns.net/
Go to "Road to Riches" tab
Enter the system you are in
Set your max distance you want to travel
Hit "Get Route"
Go to the first System
Open up your system map
Edtools tells you which points you want to scan example: "4" under the planets column means the 4th point in the system map B1 means Section B point 1 and so on


You'll bring a fortune comparitively to what you have done so far and pretty quickly, I tried this out this morning and did it for about 30 minutes made 1.8Mil. You can stay in your Cobra if you like if you have it decked out to go to about 30ly but you want around that for ease and speed.

1.8 in 30 minutes?

Early on just focus on doing missions for ONE guy. Easy delivery ones and make sure you get the most rep out of it. Once the rep is maxed they give you away 1-2 haul delivery missions for between 1.5 up to 4mil. If you did your stuff and have a decent jump range (~30) and a decent cargo capacity (64, ideally 80) it works.

Then there is core mining that is stupid accessible. A single good core (Alexandrite, Void opal...) can net you over 3 mil. And he already had a ship able to mine that no problem.

Bounty hunting in ressource sites against big ships can get you close to 150k-350k (Anacondas and other big fishes.) per kill and you only need to damage it slightly as its being murdered by the local forces. As long as you dont hug the guy too close he wont even fire at you.

If you got friends. Doing the reputation game + all getting a decent freighter together and do wing hauling missions.... Let me tell you that once rep is high... it can get you a stupid amount of cash. Especially if you chain mission since the last one in the chain is usually stupid good. Before I reset (Because I spoiled myself the early game by doing road to riches...) I managed to get to my Kraith MK2 in like what? A single day? And that includes most major module A graded.

There is a bunch of ways you can get fairly decent cash early on. Only problem I got with road to riches PERSONALLY is that it completely spoils the fun of exploration since you simply do not "discover" anything... just following a checklist. It's the "easiest" way but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is it a slog to do.

Also, I do not remember the leader's name but the "green" territory of powerplay is a good place to choose a home base in due to the discount that will help a lot early on. ;)

Anyway... Just saying that the different between me and somebody doing road to riches is this: RTR will get you kickstarted faster but bore you to death in the process. Doing it any other way will take a bit longer... but youll have fun the whole time. Also... once you got your big ship... there isn't much to do. I wish this game allowed for player owned factions and to be actually able to have your own kingdom. The galaxy is big enough for us all to profit from it and it be very cool to do. Imaging having your own hidden pirate base in an asteroid field that you map on your navigation computer. Only you and your group can jump to it but can be discovered by people if they stumble upon it. People can take it over basicly killing your income but while it last... you get a good bonus on any stolen goods. Giving you a good reason to be a very active pirate. :)