Trailblazers is not for new players I take it?

[Gurgeh]

I recently tried to come back to this game having not played it since just after the horizons update. I bought the oddesy update when I did but I'm not sure why, I loath FPS to be frank.
However I gave up again after three weeks.
- No idea what engineers are about, how they work, or why I should bother. Just greyed out.
- no idea how powerplay works or how to pick a goal and actually know whether you are successfully 'achieving' anything or wasting your time, or hire long it might take.
- no idea how to work out how to use the map, especially working out where I can and cannot land my ship. This just seems just broken and it's easier just to stay in a small.
- no idea how to work anything out, enough to come up with my own goals, let alone work what the game wants me to do, if anything.
-usually I hate using internet guides outside if a game, but I made an exception for this game. But it was useless. Everything seems like its probably out of date. (No I don't want to read about how someone else plays some aspect of the game, I want an encyclopedia manual whith answers to my specific questions. I think a FANTASY sandbox game not having an extensive 'technical' manual is just stupid. Pilots handbook is just walls of waffle text and scene setting.)

The official forum is useless. No one has answers to questions other than, 'that's been broken for years'. And 'use the unofficial database', which I just hate to be honest as it feels like cheating. Oh... and it's also out of date.

Trailblazers sounds like I'm going to have to head out and find a star system noone had visited yet before I can start playing it?
I dont have time for that, I'm still on a cobra and explorer and a couple a medium and small large freighter. I'm also not joining discords and stuff.

Who is trailblazers for?
I'm guessing this is no use to someone who doesn't want to coordinate over discords, and who needs something to entertain them while still running around in explorers, cobras, and s Type7?

[Agony_Aunt]

Colonization is really for those who have been playing a while and are willing to put in the grind.

Before you dive into colonization you have to ask yourself why would you want to do it? When you've been there, done that, got the t-shirt in ED, then colonization might be something quite interesting for you to do. But as someone starting out, there a bazillion other things you might prefer to do.

Its not like you need to rush, even if you don't get around to doing colonization for another few years, there's still going to be plenty of space for everyone ;)

However, its not exactly a high bar to get into. You do want a ship with a big cargo space ideally to reduce the back and forth. Cutter will be rank locked for you, but the Type 9 is ok... if limited in jump range until you can engineer it. Type 8 has the biggest cargo space of the medium ships and not that expensive, so a decent choice.

The claim beacon is 25 million, not hard to get.

After that, you can start with a small outpost and the colony will pay you above market average for goods you supply, so you can actually turn a small profit from deliveries.

Its all a question of how much you want to do it, your motivation, and whether you want to do it solo.

If you just want to help someone else out, you can make deliveries to their colonies, earn a little money, and your name will be added to the list of contributors to each station you contribute towards.

[spam]

I would say trailblazers is for seasoned players who've already done pretty much everything else in this game, and of course groups.

That being said, I expect we will see some amazing system build outs by players and groups over the next year or two, and everyone will benefit from that.

[dave46563]

It helps if you have experience, but not essential. It also helps if you have access to ships that have large cargo capacity like the T8/9 or Cutter. Owning a fleet carrier also helps. Having said that, none of the above is essential. Don't overreach, be realistic in your starting station. I completed a Coriolis solo, but that required 3-4 days of constant play, stocking CMM's on my Carrier and a bit of luck as I found a sweet spot where CMM's were always plentiful on every visit.

EDIT: It should be said that you have 4 weeks to finish your starting station. It's longer than it sounds, but can still be tight if you don't have the free time to play Elite. After the starting station is built, you can build other stations or outposts at your leisure, with no time limit on them.

[Chill°bucket]

Idk. I earned now 4 billion+ in a short time hauling stuff to carriers ;)
I think a better start for new players can't be there as colonisation.
Get a transport ship and make a fortune ;)

[TheARate]

You just need a good Type 9, a couple dozen million for cushion money, and lots of time and patience. You can get to that point pretty easily- maybe 20 hours of play, with how lucrative exobiology is. Probably sooner if space-trucking is your ideal, since rich players are putting out lots of absurdly-marked buy orders for common resources. I'd know, I'm one of those.

[Gurgeh]

Genuinely, thanks for these answers everyone.
Sounds like my guess although very uneducated was basically right.

(Love to hear what these bazillion other things to do are, because apart for unrelated one offs for credits to upgrade ship I can't find them.
At least none that have any more impact that voting in a national election or screaming at the wind. Way preferred the old powerplay)

[Planewalker]

If you don't know where to start, the madlads here have built an adventure generator:
https://elitedangereuse.fr/en/premiere-aventure.php

There are more than 100000 POIs, sites and things to see in elite, including but not limited to: nebulae, abandoned bases, alien ruins and structures, stellar phenomena and exobio.

Exploration is one of the core mechanics in elite; this applies to the UI itself too.
The last tab in the Internal Panel has a media player; entries from CODEX can be added.

[Chill°bucket]

Originally posted by Gurgeh:

Genuinely, thanks for these answers everyone.
Sounds like my guess although very uneducated was basically right.

(Love to hear what these bazillion other things to do are, because apart for unrelated one offs for credits to upgrade ship I can't find them.
At least none that have any more impact that voting in a national election or screaming at the wind. Way preferred the old powerplay)

Either you have a positive thinking what you could achieve at the moment or a negative what you can't. But this is not game-related, this is your sight on life.

[BaneBlackGuard]

i just recently came back, hadn't played since before landing on planets was added. saw the 25 million cost for colonization and started trading. after a few days i'm up to 40 million, but i'm unsure how much all materials are going to cost.

[LuckyVanDine]

The people shipping the materials make a profit on them. If that's you shipping them then that's your profit, not a cost.
It's only a cost if you've got yourself a fleet carrier and are placing overmarket price buy orders there to get people to deliver the stuff to you quickly

[Donovan]

Originally posted by Gurgeh:

I recently tried to come back to this game having not played it since just after the horizons update. I bought the oddesy update when I did but I'm not sure why, I loath FPS to be frank.
However I gave up again after three weeks.
- No idea what engineers are about, how they work, or why I should bother. Just greyed out.
- no idea how powerplay works or how to pick a goal and actually know whether you are successfully 'achieving' anything or wasting your time, or hire long it might take.
- no idea how to work out how to use the map, especially working out where I can and cannot land my ship. This just seems just broken and it's easier just to stay in a small.
- no idea how to work anything out, enough to come up with my own goals, let alone work what the game wants me to do, if anything.
-usually I hate using internet guides outside if a game, but I made an exception for this game. But it was useless. Everything seems like its probably out of date. (No I don't want to read about how someone else plays some aspect of the game, I want an encyclopedia manual whith answers to my specific questions. I think a FANTASY sandbox game not having an extensive 'technical' manual is just stupid. Pilots handbook is just walls of waffle text and scene setting.)

Got some answers to at least a few of your questions here.

1) Engineers allow an additional level of customization for your ship's modules. For example, Felicity can engineer an FSD up to grade 5 (Max grade, different engineers service different modules and at different grades), and can give it effects such as faster boot sequence (Not 100% sure what this does, if it's on the cooldown or the actual spool-up), increased range, and shielded (More integrity, less likely to be destroyed, etc), as well as experimental effects such as deep charge (Less fuel per jump), mass manager (Get a bit more range), etc.

Unless it has been changed, or unless I'm mistaken, you can pin ONE engineering blueprint to use anywhere, but experimental effects can only be applied at the engineer's location in-person.

2) Generally speaking, I don't know for sure there's anything in-game that'll tell you whether or not a system has stations that you can absolutely land on, but any large-size station (Coriolis, orbis, etc), will have large pads, while the smaller outposts will only have up to a medium pad. Not entirely sure about on-planet settlements since I never use anything except the engineering ones.

More on this in point 4.

3) Elite is absolutely more of a "Create your own fun/goals" sort of game, no real hand-holding to speak of. No markers of "Go here, there's a mission there, there's something to look at over on that planet", etc. Your goal(s) might be as simple as "Finish engineering my ship" to "Upgrade into an Anaconda" or "Grind rep to get into a Federal Corvette", to something large like "Buy a fleet carrier" or, with the Trailblazers update, "Set up my own station".

There ARE powerplay tasks given each week you can do, otherwise you can pretty much freely do whatever your faction supports to influence the universe somehow. Deliver powerplay goods, help overthrow another faction, take over a system, etc. Somebody more experienced with all this would need to chime in since I pretty much ignore powerplay.

4) There are a handful of useful sites still up and running, which I'll include here for you.
https://coriolis.io/ (For ship outfitting/theorycrafting)
https://edsy.org/ (Same as above, different layout)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yo1iHP9KUXpoBaIzJsRsDxfAcQa7cBq0YUIFy3m2NII/edit?gid=1438475835#gid=1438475835 (For locating engineering materials, points of interest, etc. Not positive how up-to-date it is these days)

https://edgalaxy.net/hge (Similar to above, useful for finding high grade emissions which have grade 4-5 engineering materials)

https://edtools.cc/ (Useful for if you decide to go out mining in regards to locating hotspots)

https://inara.cz/elite/news/ (Your go-to for pretty much 95% of anything you need to know/find in Elite)

[BaneBlackGuard]

i'm finding quite a few planet locations with landing for a large ship.

only way to tell that i've found is to jump into that system, find the desired location in the target list on the left screen and select it, the window it pops up says whether it has a landing pad that you can land your large ship at. haven't found a reliable method from outside the system. just because it's shown as an orbital station doesn't mean it can take large ships. just because it's a planet location doesn't mean it can't.

really would be nice if this info was available from the system map

[PERCULATOR]

Hey if you need assistance as a new player starting your colony, my group might be able to help

We are colonizing out into deep space!

Check us out on Inara, our group is Fractured Star.