Surprised with the Type 10 Defender

[jrlaudio]

I have been playing for about two months now. I have put in about 250 hours and have been grinding mostly in Trade (trading and mining). I got to the point where I could buy a Defender and outfit it as a combat ship. Now mind you, one of reasons I have played Elite (I'm from the original game in the 80's) is that I generally do not like combat. Not my thing. But now that mining is nurfed it takes a really long time to earn credits. Now matter how carefully you plan systems, routes, etc. Unlike many of you who earned billions mining in a short time, that's not an option anymore for newer players.

So I tried something I didn't think would work. Build out a Defender with lots of reinforcements, make it a shield and hull tank, over-power it, add a cargo bay for four units of gold, two point defense, and use all nine guns. Then ... go to a system and take on as many massacre missions as you can get for one system. In my case I went to Sol and got dozens of missions for pirates in Barnard Star. I went to a low res spot in a ring and just buzzed around and killed everything. The gold in the four space cargo bay is to attract pirates when they scan me. Between bounty credits in Barnard's, and the mission back in Sol, over the course of one session I made over a billion in credits. I was shocked it worked.

The real reason for this post is the Type-10 Defender outfit like this is a beast. I could have easily parked the thing and gone AFK and the thing would have just killed everything and not die. There is no engineering (yet) on this. So for mid-level players looking to make some credits, this would certainly be an option. Now mind you the thing moves like a beached whale, not quite as bad as an non-engineered Corvette, but with 7A thrusters it can turn well enough to keep NPC ships in view. Now mind you all nine guns are Beam and Burst lasers on turrets, so that makes it much easier for a lousy combat pilot like myself, not to mention the fighter bay.

I should point out that during the entire 10 hour session in the low-res zone, the shields only went away once, but recharged quickly. Obviously, I never got blown up either. I will slowly engineer this build, probably in power distribution and weapons. However, I am still just starting out engineering, so I have a ways to go. Didn't really need it so much where I am currently at. I only have a about 25% more to go to get to Elite in trade, so that's when I am going to make my newer ship purchases. (you know ... Jameson Base and all that). I went from a Sidewinder, to a Keelback, then a Type-7, to Python miner, which gave me enough credits to get the Defender and outfit it like this. I sold the Type-7 and the Sidewinder to help pay for it all. Now I have more credits then I have ever had ... In one session. It would have taken me a week (playing everyday) to make this amount of credits, mining and trading.

One thing to mention to newer and not so skilled pilots out there who may want this ship. Make sure you have the "Advanced" auto landing/docking module. This beast barely fits in the mailslot, and why bother losing the credits when your ship gets blowed up because you got stuck in the mailslot or rack. The auto-dock/land is not a shame thing, it's practical especially with a "wide-load" like this ship. You literally can forget about staying to the right in the mailslot, you have be in the center just to go in or out. Had an guy today try to slip past me in the mailslot because he wouldn't wait for my auto-lauch to fit me in the mailslot. He didn't make it, and got wedged into the rack on the station since he just bounced off my mass and went sideways. I just kept going like nothing happened, and fortunately didn't get stuck with him. He got blown to smithereens by the station. Ha! ... Dope.

I wouldn't recommend this build for PvP, or even high threat level areas, but for grinding stacked massacre-pirate missions (even for wings) in low-res zones ... it's a winner.

[jamespfp]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Sighman:

I'm at the platinum hotspot now but the only platinum I've found is in cores. I actually wanted to laser mine instead!

Platinum Hotspots spawn in two types of ring, the Metal Rich ones (Cores Only) and the Metallic ones (which have a laser percentage for Platinum). People who are grinding hundreds or thousands of units per hour (wing mining is thousands) are in the Metallic rings.

Solo, I think I could get over 1000 units in about 4 hours.

If anyone is curious about this, I'd highly recommend checking out 21 ERIDANI, because it's very very close to decent Markets which routinely pay between 245 and 290 K for it. Planet #4 has the metallic ring, and what's more, there's a very high number of moons (5 gas giants worth of moons) that also have geological activity. The system has an abundance of Tellurium among other things.

[Nebz]

How do you automate attacking ships with the T-10? I assume that's what killing things "AFK" means. Even turreted guns require manually firing.

I took on a Threat Level 0 (again, that's ZERO) bounty hunt of a single criminal, but got jumped by like 7 pirates on the way to the location, which seemed to be a consequence of the mission. I had mounted a ton of turreted lasers and kinetic cannons, but obviously I had to track ships in front of me and manually fire. I had an AI crew member going after the swarm of enemies, but even with over 1000 shield points, I lost the T-10 and had to rebuy at a cost of 14 million credits. So my question is, what's the trick? OP makes it sound like fighting swarms of Threat Level 0 ships with a shielded and buffed T-10 is so easy you can AFK it. Did I miss some critical detail?

[Planewalker]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Nebz:

How do you automate attacking ships with the T-10? I assume that's what killing things "AFK" means. Even turreted guns require manually firing.

There's a setting for turrets in the internal panel.
Kill missions are not the same as massacre, and can be elite difficulty.
AFK'ing is no longer possible as there are a lot of security ships in low res sites now.

[<Caeris↝]

Also a way to afk farm much money

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEv7K8ml3YY

[Sighman]

1000 shield points isn't very much. I think my Corvette is 2000+, from memory. You want to fill nearly all the utility mounts with heavy duty shield boosters for a start.

[Heimdall313]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Sighman:

1000 shield points isn't very much. I think my Corvette is 2000+, from memory. You want to fill nearly all the utility mounts with heavy duty shield boosters for a start.

My Corvette is 4000+ in both absolute armor and shields, with a Prismatic. Mostly a shield tank though, double 7A Shield Cell Boosters + double heat sink.
Shield boosters, you want one or two Thermal resist, with the rest as Heavy Duty, Super Capacitors experimental on all of them. Resistance Augmented can sometimes be useful but Heavy Duty is nearly always better.
Type-10 is a hull tank, and really only the Anaconda compares to it on that area; Lakon is generally trash on shields, great on jump range, great on armor. 11K (effective) armor on a Type 10 isn't maxed at all and can still have a shield as a backup to soak up some damage. Main issue is the horrible hardpoint placement, even the Clipper isn't hemispherical.

[Youda008]

Can anyone give me a tip for a good star system for AFK farming? I tried couple but i couldn't find enough massacre missions for stacking to make it worth.
I made only like 30 milion per run, which together with finding the missions took like 3 hours and then i died and half of the reward was gone.

[funkynutz]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Sighman:

1000 shield points isn't very much. I think my Corvette is 2000+, from memory. You want to fill nearly all the utility mounts with heavy duty shield boosters for a start.

I'd go for a mix of heavy duty AND resistance augmented...

[Sighman]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Youda008:

Can anyone give me a tip for a good star system for AFK farming? I tried couple but i couldn't find enough massacre missions for stacking to make it worth.
I made only like 30 milion per run, which together with finding the missions took like 3 hours and then i died and half of the reward was gone.

Ngalinn, but there's only a small/medium landing pad so you'll need to swap ships at a large station.

There are 5 factions there which hand out missions. You want to be allied with each of them.

[AJ24]

AFK farming (even semi-AFK) is a bad idea right now - until the bug with the hostiles not showing up is fixed your turrets and fighter will have a tendency to completely ignore pirates shooting at you

[funkynutz]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Nebz:

Even turreted guns require manually firing... ...obviously I had to track ships in front of me and manually fire.

Incorrect. They only require manually firing if they're set to forward fire, or target only. When set to fire at will, they will automatically engage anything that's showing as hostile on your scanner, assuming it's in range.

...even with over 1000 shield points...

Check the shield strength on this: https://s.orbis.zone/i048 Ignore the absolute... Look at the explosive/kinetic/thermal resistances on the shields...

[Youda008]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AJ24:

AFK farming (even semi-AFK) is a bad idea right now - until the bug with the hostiles not showing up is fixed your turrets and fighter will have a tendency to completely ignore pirates shooting at you

Something like that is in the today's patch notes.

[Sighman]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Youda008:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AJ24:

AFK farming (even semi-AFK) is a bad idea right now - until the bug with the hostiles not showing up is fixed your turrets and fighter will have a tendency to completely ignore pirates shooting at you

Something like that is in the today's patch notes.

That's not going to help AFK proponents unless the patch also removes the occasional Deadly NPC from low RES areas.

[AJ24]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Youda008:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AJ24:

AFK farming (even semi-AFK) is a bad idea right now - until the bug with the hostiles not showing up is fixed your turrets and fighter will have a tendency to completely ignore pirates shooting at you

Something like that is in the today's patch notes.

Saw that, yep. And mighty pleased about it too 😁

[AJ24]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Sighman:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Youda008:

Something like that is in the today's patch notes.

That's not going to help AFK proponents unless the patch also removes the occasional Deadly NPC from low RES areas.

Nah it will help a lot. Still might not save them, mind....