elon interstellar model worth? depends

[Ryujinblade]

so just got my hands on the elon model ship, beautiful ship, and the way the excavator opens up is probably the coolest thing since sliced bread. on top of that, the way the baffel upgrade is applied to this ship is icing on the cake, i wasnt sure what i was expecting with how it would have worked on the elon, but just awesome. but and don't get me started on that fusion drive. most games would just say "this ship is equipped with a fusion drive" yadda yadda yadda. but the fact you actually have a particle collider visible on the rear outer ring is just awesome, and that blazing sun effect from the core equalizing power draw, seriously awesome.
my only gripe at this moment is that the ship doesnt seem to reflect proper cargo capacity. it boasts the largest capacity of all other ships with a whopping 400 m^3 of cargo space. but doesnt seems to hold that much at this time. im not positive but that may be the space it can hold properly if the excavator is held open with a baffle to prevent cargo from slipping out? which if thats the case then i just didnt think about it much. love the ship. the practically infinite power supply opens up a lot for the ship on top of that, so consider my specific gripe just minor whining.
im curious what are yalls opinion of the elon interstellar? i was using the expanded cargo variant of the eagle prospector and was easily raking in more per run without even processing any of the ore, about 450-550k a run, with each run usually going for about 20 to 30 mins depending ore density. i imagined the elon as a jack of all trades and almost master of all considering the price point, i would just like to hear yalls opinion and experience on the matter to those that have gotten it, or just anyone's experience with any of the other ships with their quirks and perks.

[Ryujinblade]

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

Lol it got me thinking but does anyone know if destroyed stations remain marked? If the corpses respawn you could just do frozen meat wagon runs and at 20k a pop it might be fairly efficient.

i know the all space marks remain active for a set period when they are discovered. typically next to the location in the astrogator tab, there will be a time in () next to the location. after that to my knowledge it zoops outta existence. but i have a station wreck still in my game. ill have to check if they do or do not respawn the corpses

[Marvin]

Originally posted by Ryujinblade:

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

Lol it got me thinking but does anyone know if destroyed stations remain marked? If the corpses respawn you could just do frozen meat wagon runs and at 20k a pop it might be fairly efficient.

i know the all space marks remain active for a set period when they are discovered. typically next to the location in the astrogator tab, there will be a time in () next to the location. after that to my knowledge it zoops outta existence. but i have a station wreck still in my game. ill have to check if they do or do not respawn the corpses

The destroyed station remains there even after time runs out - that time is only how long your astrogator can track it from the last known coordinates and gets reset each time you visit it. Even after time runs out, you can still find it again if you go where you found it before. Same goes for moonlets. Other stations can and will move.
The bodies, however, should not respawn. Lore reason being that they died when the station was destroyed and since the station doesn't get rebuilt and destroyed again, there are no new people to die in that event

[ezbz14]

Originally posted by Ryujinblade:

see the per dive thing makes no differnece to me, it takes at most 60 seconds to prep for another dive. i can easily make anywhere from 2 to 4 mill per hour with what i run now. though im not saying yalls methods are bad, just saying that the haul eagle is what i consider effecient. but im still gonna experiment with new builds as i wonna see whats around

Is there like a vanilla model to the Eagle Prospect? How can I tell the difference?

[[BFs]Karaya 1]

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

Lol it got me thinking but does anyone know if destroyed stations remain marked? If the corpses respawn you could just do frozen meat wagon runs and at 20k a pop it might be fairly efficient.

The habitat stays there, but the corpses dont.

[CynSys | Platius Cyndar]

Originally posted by ezbz14:

Originally posted by Ryujinblade:

see the per dive thing makes no differnece to me, it takes at most 60 seconds to prep for another dive. i can easily make anywhere from 2 to 4 mill per hour with what i run now. though im not saying yalls methods are bad, just saying that the haul eagle is what i consider effecient. but im still gonna experiment with new builds as i wonna see whats around

Is there like a vanilla model to the Eagle Prospect? How can I tell the difference?

The Eagle Prospector is the default model of the Prospector series

[BunnyOverkill]

It has been some time since anyone wrote in this thread, so I will add my bit to it:
Ryujinblade is absolutely correct. I didn't believe it when I read it, I don't like drones, I prefer to use MPU and refine the resources... but Eagle with AP200 laser, 3 haul drones and no MPU is just awesome. In few minutes, I had about 200k in cargo hold from good asteroid.
Few tips for beginners from my testing:
1) You have to learn how to use drones effectively. Use them wrong and they are terrible.
- Stop like 100-200m max in front of big asteroid, drones have 400m range only. Don't blast from kilometer away.
- Blast the asteroid with laser, split it to basic components as fast as possible.
- Do not move, do not change your heading. You can set your autopilot to anchor on some other unmoving rock so your ship won't turn.
- Keep your drones set to higher value chunks, 4k+ is good idea. Unless you hunt berylium, set drones to ignore ores that are not analysed yet. Berylium is usually too light and fast, so you may be forced to enable that feature.
- rotating ship really messes up with drones. So does changing speed, but it's much less a problem.

2) I tried multiple ships, K225-BB looks nice on paper, but the cargo hold can't hold cargo, even with bafflers, the shape is horrible. Even with powerful thrusters, Eagle is much more easier to control.

3) Eagle has a variant called vulture prospector, it has high-stress slot, very nice if you are upgrading from your starter ship and are not used to drone hauling. It loses 2 drone slots though.

4) It's very tempting to install MPU on your ship, but even expensive ones are just so slow and cumbersome. You have to constantly keep in mind to keep the rocks in the back, it can't keep up with you if you are mining at anything more then snail pace. Yes, rusatom one is just across your whole cargo hold, but it also has 40 percent effeciency. More then half of what you mine is just *gone*.

5) Don't mine in the shallows. Go deeper. You can buy a beacon and get deep on your own, or if you pick some LIDAR contacts while mining, or speak to ships, some will give you pointers. Just jump to the belt entrance, then astrogator can navigate you to your saved slot deeper in the belt. Some asteroids deeper can be worth 100-200k. 10-20k worth single chunks, easily. This is where Eagle with haul drones and no MPU will shine.

[OverThere]

I try to role play within the spirit of the compelling world the designer has built.

My current role is just to haul rock, trying to peacefully make as much money as possible for my (invisible, unnamed, no story) character in the game, while doing the best he can for his crew.

That means maximum money per unit of game world time, with maximum comfort while indulging crew requests (find my son, take leave to pursue my musical career, etc). Game world time passes very differently from time in our world.

In game world, every run includes a minimum of four days travel to the ring and twelve hours travel back to base. That's 108 hours per run that the game abstracts away. In that spirit, twenty minutes in the ring to quickly gather 500K in resources is inefficient compared to four hours in the ring to gather 2M.

If I just spent four days getting to the site, you better believe I'll spend a few hours longer to double or quadruple my haul!

In role play mode, this means:
- friends with everyone, as much as possible
- if at all possible, run away from threats, otherwise microwave as defence to cause attackers to give up and leave before my ship becomes total scrap
- Peacock variant of the Eagle for crew comfort
- at least one visit to a bar per run, ideally two or more. Crew seem to really love those bar visits!
- ion engines and thrusters so remass lasts for ever, particularly if reactor damage is avoided and you have a mineral processor that does remass
- most profit is in making and selling drone components and mass driver ammo (need the fancy MPU for that) or a single processed ore to a particularly desperate hab (2M credit runs with a K37 and a mono-cargo module, but it's 4-6 hours of real world time verses 20 minutes of real world time for other builds. The long K37 run also means you invariably return to base with a derelict ship on the manipulator arm).

This means a run is about 114 hours of in-world time, 108 hours of transit in comfort (with the Peacock) and 6 hours of slow, careful zen-like harvesting. On the basis of in-world time, that run is a lot more profitable and pleasant than one that is 108.5 hours of in-world time - particularly if the ship is a Vulture. Hard no on the ship without an espresso machine, among other inconveniences!

[BunnyOverkill]

You are correct, sir :) My crew would be much happier in peacock, I heard their coffee maker not only makes coffee, but it is also safe to stomach. The coffee, not the coffee maker - don't get any ideas.
Too bad their captain is a wirehead who can zone out for days into virtworld and only comes out for actual mining.
Good news though - their captain will soon have enough money to buy the new Model E Elon interstellar space yacht. And promptly crash it into some station. Again. Or insult bunch of pirates, forgetting his ship doesn't have any real defences. Again.
Well, at least their life is not boring.

[daLoonie]

NGL legit upset that I traded in my pelican prospector for this fancy-looking PoS

250k for a reactor fix is not okay

now I finally understand the naming scheme

good thing I kept my peacock