How long does it take to unlock a high tier ship?

[Botavo]

Im new to the game and I was wondering how long it would take to unlock a high end ship.

[Arya]

I can't answer that directly, it's entirely bound to how and how often you play, how good you are, and what you define as a high-tier ship.

You can grind to buy an expensive ship in a couple of days, but you won't have the skills to fly it well, the engineers to unlock it's true potential, and you'll have a terrible time.

[Λ E O N]

Some high tier ships are locked by Federation-Rank or Empire-Rank. So if you want it, you should work both, faction rank and cash making. Is not easy to tell how long it takes, but takes a little long for sure, lol. 300-500 hours? Not sure

[Ostoia]

Originally posted by ☯ UFO ☯:

Some high tier ships are locked by Federation-Rank or Empire-Rank. So if you want it, you should work both, faction rank and cash making. Is not easy to tell how long it takes, but takes a little long for sure, lol. 300-500 hours? Not sure

You can get cutter in less than 100 hours atm. It just depends how fast you progress at the begining. After you get decent explorer or miner its just a question of efficency. And getting reputation rank would probably take less than a day of doing data deliveries in those isolated two system locations.

[Λ E O N]

The problem with the high tier ships Its not getting the money and the reputation to buy them. The huge problem with high tier ships is how many time and cash you need for upgrade it. If a Federal-Corvette costs around 190,000,000 Cr it would needs another 400,000,000 Cr to be improved and updated, all of its modules, weapons, enginnering. Yeah, this is the real harsh thing here.

In my case with my python, cost me around 45,000,000 Cr, and the upgrades costs around 150,000,000 Cr aprox.

[Botavo]

Originally posted by ☯ UFO ☯:

The problem with the high tier ships Its not getting the money and the reputation to buy them. The huge problem with high tier ships is how many time and cash you need for upgrade it. If a Federal-Corvette costs around 190,000,000 Cr it would needs another 400,000,000 Cr to be improved and updated, all of its modules, weapons, enginnering. Yeah, this is the real harsh thing here.

How long would this take some one like you to earn?

[Arya]

Originally posted by Ostoia:

You can get cutter in less than 100 hours atm. It just depends how fast you progress at the begining. After you get decent explorer or miner its just a question of efficency. And getting reputation rank would probably take less than a day of doing data deliveries in those isolated two system locations.

Affording a ship is one thing, flying it well is quite another.

I often see posts from players who ground for a Cutter or Corvette, only to realize they'd skipped so many vital lessons and now had no idea what to do with it. And who'd robbed themselves of any sense of propression or purpose very quickly.

Take your time, OP. You can't go from a Sidewinder to a Corvette and expect to enjoy it, let alone fly the ship well. And with high-tier ships being almost totally reliant on Engineers, it's debatable whether you'd even have a true Corvette. Or just a pale, undergeared shadow of what a Corvette can be.

[Arya]

Originally posted by Botavo:

Originally posted by ☯ UFO ☯:

The problem with the high tier ships Its not getting the money and the reputation to buy them. The huge problem with high tier ships is how many time and cash you need for upgrade it. If a Federal-Corvette costs around 190,000,000 Cr it would needs another 400,000,000 Cr to be improved and updated, all of its modules, weapons, enginnering. Yeah, this is the real harsh thing here.

How long would this take some one like you to earn?

I went from a broke Adder pilot to a Rear Admiral and Federal Corvette owner in four months. But I took it slow, and learned how to fly and fight along the way.

[darkflemish]

Empire will take +-3 weeks to get the rank of Duke.
Imperial Cutter + outtiffing will take +- 1,050,000,000 credits.
Then you need to engineer your Cutter....

[Λ E O N]

Originally posted by Botavo:

Originally posted by ☯ UFO ☯:

The problem with the high tier ships Its not getting the money and the reputation to buy them. The huge problem with high tier ships is how many time and cash you need for upgrade it. If a Federal-Corvette costs around 190,000,000 Cr it would needs another 400,000,000 Cr to be improved and updated, all of its modules, weapons, enginnering. Yeah, this is the real harsh thing here.

How long would this take some one like you to earn?

Im not a fanatic or grinder-like player, so for me in this case, this gonna take long. Maybe someone can help you better how to insanely grind towards a high tier ship faster, I cannot help you with that. I usually play this game depending my mood, sometimes going out there exploring, other day doing missions and so on. Im not a kind of focused grindy grindy player.

[Arya]

Honestly, you're better off taking your time.

Endgame ships like the Anaconda, Corvette and Cutter are extremely reliant on Engineer Mods. And while you can grind for the ship quickly, unlocking engineers and earning the materials you'll need takes time. And without those mods, you'll fly a pale shadow of what that ship can be.

A stock Corvette isn't worth owning. It's slow, clumsy, weakly shielded and easily overwhelmed by smaller ships. Likewise for the Anaconda. Cutters suffer even more, they're not agile enough for combat when A-Rated in my opinion. All three are glorified paperweights.

And the other problem is more subjective. These are supposed to be endgame ships, the culimnation of a journey. Grinding for one is like leafing through a book and only reading the last chapter. Elite has no main quest, it's a game of progression and exploration. Cutting out 99.9% of that progression to replace it with mindless grind will ruin your experience.

[fiese Fee™]

Big Ships means not more Fun!

[Fix]

Big ships doesn't mean big win... it means big loss ;)

[THE_RaBiD_CanuK]

Not worth grinding for the most expensive ships. If you play the game for awhile, it'll come eventually. You should be able to get an Anaconda within 100 hours of play. Corvette will take several hundred hours.

The medium-sized ships are the most fun imo.

[Zothen]

Originally posted by Botavo:

How long does it take to unlock a high tier ship?
Im new to the game and I was wondering how long it would take to unlock a high end ship.

The answer is: Tons of grindy hours. Understand that everything in Elite is designed around massive grind for the next tier ship so you can grind more for the following tier.
But try to cash in on the community events as much as possible.

[Λ E O N]

Im having lot of fun with medium ships, like Python, Krait Phantom, even with my lovely ASPX. medium size ships are most versatile, more fun and quick to handle, take less Cr for upgrade and take less insurance costs. Medium ships are good too for exploring tricky planets which has terrible terrain. Hell! even my most fanatical companions and friends out there with almost all the ships already purchased, always tend to switch between large to medium-sized ships because as they say: those kind of ships are more fun and easier to deal with, especially as I said, for explore the surface of the planets, fast docking fast dodging fast targeting fast fighting and the list is huge in this point.