scanners ....trying out expensive d scanners and kill warrent scanners

Yesterday I jumped way over from Lung to visit the Jameson memorial at the founders world. I had the permit having been in the beta testing. I cashed in my cargo space for fuel scoops and a hugely expensive discovery scanner or D-scanner. I didn't buy the advanced detail scanner an immediately regretted it since there were loads of unexplored systems. I'm going to head back that way having procured one. All the expensive d scanner seems to do is increase the range of discovering new astronomical objects. The detail scanner actually increases the data gathered.

I also tried out a pricey kill warrant scanner but I never even managed to complete a scan before hostilities erupted so I ditched that especially since I may have needed to visit the regions in which the bounties the scanner detected actually were. In may not have given it a fair go but the top end one was too slow so I'm not ready for it (may never be)

Power distributor rocks..

At last I've spent the time and money to kit out my Cobra MkIII properly. I've upgraded its power plant, power distributor and shields.

It now sports two gimballed rating D beam lasers and 2 multi cannons on the small hard points.

The power distributor meant that my rating D twin beam lasers could be kept firing on a wanted sidewinder until it exploded without any thermal over-load!!!

Heat sinks installed also so with the tougher targets I can still keep the pressure on when the beams thermically over-load, only 20 cargo space because I've installed 3 shield cell banks one cat 4 rating B and 2 smaller cat 2 ones.

I assigned the heat sinks to V key so I don't have to bother with fire groups for them and likewise  assigned the Shield Cell banks to the B key.

My fire groups are simple to avoid confusion in combat :

Group 1: (Standard use)
Primary Mouse: 2 gimballed rating D Beams
Secondary Mouse: 2 gimballed rating F Multi-Cannons

Group 2: (Full ON)
Primary Mouse: 2 gimballed rating D Beams & 2 gimballed rating F Multi-Cannons
Secondary Mouse: Shield Cell Bank

My mouse also has 2 side buttons that I set to move through the fire groups which is handy!

I took it out for a quick spin into the warzone around Ashby city at Luytens star and it performed admirably. It also made mincemeat of several wanted ships that I stopped to check out. I'm pretty pleased with its load-out. Also it's now worth over 3.8 million (re-build cost of 150k or therabouts so I need to be careful not to get over excited!!!).

Gimballed weapons

I have to say that I initially thought that gimballed weapons were wasteful of energy/ammo, less precise and susceptible to chaff in the case of lasers.

I am a convert now though because despite their aforesaid limitations they are quicker at ending the battle.... especially my twin beam lasers. They really keep the heat up on the target. All I have to do is balance my Cobras power to increase the duration I can paint the target before thermal overload.

For tricky opponents I've been using a heat sink to keep the pressure on.

Mining and warzones

Well this weekend has been full of new things in space. Firstly I bought a Lakon 6 cargo transporter and started doing runs of gold from Lung to Luyten's star which with my Lakon kitted out with 104 cargo meant I was earning around 100k per round trip. Gold one way and water purifiers the other.

That meant I saved up enough to kit my Cobra out with some decent shields and shield banks and try some warzone missions.

Despite contributing to well over 20 take downs I only ended up with 1 of the 8 warzone craft needed to complete my mission. And after losing my Cobra I gave up and lost reputation. I can only assume that I had to take down the ship entirely on my own. Either that or there is some other factor I'm missing. What I don't get is why I was fighting system defence vessels even though I selected a faction that didn't have pirate in the name.

I then tried some mining and to cut a long story short even if I could find a vein of platinum I just don't have the hours to spend mining to make credits. It just takes too long to chip away at the asteroids and collect and refine the metals.
Another problem with mining is the pirates kept on hassling me. Mostly they would buzz off once they realised I had no cargo but once in a while they would attack. I was using my Lakon to mine but I guess it would be better to kit out my Cobra since I could take out the pirates. Maybe quite a nice way to trap genuine pirates when I need to!

So I guess it is back to hauling gold too and fro until I can buy a Python and see how they work! Might take a while!

I summary I think I may mine again but I really don't yet understand warzone missions.

Trading Thoughts

I have found some fairly good trading opportunities. my initial one was going between industrial worlds and Agricultural ones with Earth-like planets in the same system taking Marine Equipment to the water based planets and Animal Meat back the other way. With 40 Cargo I was making around 37k on the Marine Equipment.


Now I'm closer to Sol I've started trading Beryllium Teng Yeh star system a couple of jumps to Broderick Orbital. I'm making around 40k per trip now. Soon it may be necessary to change to a proper trading ship - a Lakon one -  (Currently running a Cobra MkIII so I can do the combat missions).


I had some good runs from Werner Von Siemens port with Gold but they didn't have enough so I've stopped that.


Good news is that my trading so far has moved me up to Merchant so progress is being made!

Federal Invitations

I've had three invitations so far. One for Sol (which I had anyway as I backed the Beta) and one for Ross 128 and one for PLX 695. All these tended to keep coming through after I received the Permit and all the permits arrived shortly after receiving a Naval rank progression.

Coincidence probably but in the latter 2 cases I went to the systems in question (PLX & Ross) and got another Naval mission within about 3-4 days. Note that the permits mention a communique and meeting a Naval contact but I tried 3 things and found no one to meet:

1. Cruising around an investigating unidentified signal sources (these sometimes result in mission updates like ...don't take the resources there...take it here instead - so far always in breach of the original contact)
2. Checking all the bulletin boards for several days
3. Checking contacts

One thought I had was this might be quite a neat way to get players moving around - lock certain systems and give out permits. The things I saw in Sol & PLX 695 indicated some advantages/fun things to visit in these systems

Edit: I have the feeling that I need to keep going with some federal missions - will give this a go once I have finished my current exploring in v1.1!

Fed up with the feds

Whilst trying to take down an Imperial terrorist for a Federation career progression mission the Federal Security service ships got in the way again of my beam laser and started opening up on me. So I lost my one good chance to get the target. Truly I have had enough of the feds. I'm now wanted and got shot up when I returned to port by the port itself. I'm heading to alliance space as I'm finding it too hard to handle the Federation missions when their ships get in the way all the time.

Federtion Career progression?

Today I took a couple of Federation Navy contracts as career progression but they have turned into a real pain. I have only located one of the "terrorists" and they were too hard to take so I bugged out. I just can't seem to find the targets. Ahh well live & learn.

A visit to Sol

I have just visited Sol for the first time and docked at Mars High. Well worth a visit as the station looks beautiful inside, can't wait to visit the other stations. I had a permit from backing the beta version. I ended up flying in and around the Capital Ship orbiting Earth: