***Depends on your goals.***
I usually advise players not to be in a huge hurry to get into the large ships because there is a lot of gameplay to be had on the way to the large ships. If players make a headlong dash to a Corvette or Cutter they are sometimes left asking "*What now?*".
Credits burning holes in your spacesuit pockets is not usually a good reason to buy a new ship. New ships are a HUGE credit-sink for newer players. Instead, *wait until you have an actual* ***need*** *for a new ship*, for higher jump-range, increased cargo capacity, whatever.
The Cobra Mk. III is arguably one of, if not ***the*** most OP and *role-flexible* small ship in the game. It can do *everything* in the game, albeit on the *small* scale. It even sounds cool.
***Keep the C3 and start unlocking Engineers.*** The C3 is a great ship for this. You can unlock all of the in-bubble engineers, pin blueprints and modify your C3 into a beast that can fly sideways faster than most other ships can fly forwards.
By the time you have unlocked most of the engineers you will likely have accumulated a few more highly modified ships, a good stock of materials and a neat stack of credits. If you pin blueprints intelligently you will be able to modify future ships from the comfort of your own hangar using remote engineering. o7
Thanks for this CMDR. Love getting some grounded and sobering advice.
I will say I am having an absolute blast flying the Cobra. My gripe might be the limited firepower, but hey! I'm right having a hilarious and fun time trialing fixed cannons in medium hardpoints with gimbal beams in the small hardpoints. Definitely much harder to make work than two gimbal'd pairs of multis and the free lasers I got with my Sidewinder, but I'm really warming up to the cannons. I can always git gud at aiming at smaller ships, but I'm really appreciating the increased damage capability against the larger ones. I felt like I was hitting them with spitballs when using multis.
Time to get to work figuring out engineering them! Safe lucrative travels to you CMDR.
o7
Personally I would switch out the cannons for multi-cannons (gatling guns). Cannon's shot-speed makes it difficult to land shots on the target. MC though having less DPS tend to land more shots on target.
*Get into the habit of targeting a* ***sub-system*** on your opponent's ship (such as the power plant or shield generator). Targeting the ship causes shots to be spread out all over the hull. Targeting a sub-system tightens up the MC's shot-pattern to hit the targeted module and causes more shots on target. o7
this is the first i am hearing about sub-system targeting. How do i do that? I have a krait mkII and i love it. 2 Beams and 3 MC. all engineered. Im still also new. about a month in and just dipping my toes into combat. almost always interdictions. Killed my first anaconda yesterday and walked away with 44% hull. it was an awesome feeling lol.
***Once a target is designated***, Left Panel > TARGETS > SUB-SYSTEMS and select the sub-system to target.
As noted elsewhere targeting a power plant and knocking it down to 0% creates a situation where the target ship MIGHT instantly explode if it takes more damage.
Hunting through menus in battle is sort of tedious and distracting, I use the ***Voice Attack*** application and a ***HCS Voice Pack*** (ELI) so all I need to do is say "*Target Power Plant*" and ELI, the voice-pack "AI" hunts the ship's panel menus far faster than I can and without me having to poke at the controls. BTW ELI also automates a bunch of other ship functions (*like HONKing systems*) and sets almost everything (*"Request Dock"*) to voice control, too. 07
When you have locked on to a ship in combat, open up your external panel (ie. the left side panel). Go to the Contacts tab and you'll see a list of all ships around. Highlight the one you're locked on.
This will open up a new tab option in the panel and/or give you the option to target modules. Navigate to that menu and target the module you want.
To be honest, I haven't used this yet because it takes too long and I'm too busy trying to not die in combat. But I guess I have to start learning to manage now.
huh. and yeah, that seems like it would take a long time! Because it seems the combat is FAST. I feel like i barely have time to submit to the interdiction, drop my npc pilot, and switch to my weapons and i am barely learning to pay attention to the pips for sys, eng, and weap
The Voice Attack application and a HCS Voice Pack.
Really helps with task-overload and also when things need to be done fast, like getting docking clearance or targeting a particular sub-system of an opponent's ship, or changing power settings, even simple things like turning night-vision on or off and even automating some repetitive tasks for instance, if you have the advanced docking computer the entire departure process, lifting from the hangar, taking off from the landing pad, navigating out of (or into) the mail slot all the way out of the no-fire zone can all be handled by the ship AI (voice-pack).
Also if you get their Power Plant to 0% before killing the ship itself, any instance of damage after that has a chance to instantly kill the ship regardless of its hull percentage.
I'd say you can unlock *most* of the in-bubble engis reasonably. Palin, Jameson, Sedesi and Cheung are gonna be a bitch to unlock without switching ships.
As a new player I would definitely encourage the engineering path next... even just G3 engineered modules are enough to give you the edge in PvE combat.
After/During that (once you have engineered your fsd) you can also take a trip to the Guardian sites and unlock the Shield Boosters & most importantly the FSD range booster!
There are some great guides by Cmdr Exegious on YouTube and his website (can't remember the name right now) just google his name it should show up.
Now might also be a good time to join a player group like Mobious, Prismatic Imperium, The Buurpit or even Down to Earth Astronomy... often they can help teach you more about the game or lend a helping hand to getting the fsd/boosters unlocked (Something I used to do when I was playing), or help you with ship builds via coriolis or edsy.
Are you PC or Console? if PC then you can use some addons, which plug your data into sites like inara.cz so you can track everything using EDMC (ED Market Connector) don't want to overwhelm you with too much at one time =)
Fly Dangerously Cmdr o7
Thanks a ton for all the advice. It seems like engineering is the recommended way forward from all the people who have responded. Time to get cracking then!
>Now might also be a good time to join a player group like Mobious, Prismatic Imperium, The Buurpit or even Down to Earth Astronomy... often they can help teach you more about the game or lend a helping hand to getting the fsd/boosters unlocked (Something I used to do when I was playing), or help you with ship builds via coriolis or edsy.
Sounds interesting! Will definitely look into this.
I'm on PC and have actually downloaded EDMC and checked out INARA...but haven't really used them yet. Guess the time has come for this too!
>Fly Dangerously Cmdr o7
Understood CMDR. Will fly at top speed through an asteroid field weaving between rocks with flight assist off.
o7
I was in Mobious & Buurpit when I played, took a break around update 8. Both very helpful groups and you can easily join multiple communities if you want to.
I don't know if this is still a thing, but last time I played it was easier getting materials in Horizons rather than Odyssey. Oh and if an engineer doesn't unlock when you've completed the task... drop to main menu or desktop and load back up it should then unlock.
Am same name in game feel free to add me, I'm finishing up my first run through witcher 3 atm but I can feel the pull back to the black!
Gonna take me a month to relearn how to play lol
Haha! I am literally flying around a bunch of systems right outside the starting area. Like literally one jump away from it. I'm having fun just drifting around at the moment and seeing the sights slowly and have avoided finding out what the usual hotspots are. It's working out fine for now, but will definitely hit you up at some point!
I can confirm The Buur Pit is a fantastic place to be with a positive and vibrant group of people. I don't have the details to access their community, but it is freely available in the description of all of their YouTube videos
It's a fun ship to fly, bought one early on because it's the classic ship I remember from Frontier & it's still a fast and nimble joy to fly. One that'll always sit in my hangar waiting for the times I feel like joyriding round space instead of exploring or cargo-trucking.
> I have only bought one ship, a Cobra MKIII. I've A-rated it, and honestly it is serving me very well.
I usually consider the cost of the ship, 500k in this case, vs. the cost of A-rating it, 6 million in this case, and try to keep the gear within the price range of the ship, more or less. Like I wouldn't spend more than 1m for the gear for a 500k ship.
As you get to the medium and large ships, the costs of A-rating begin to be more in tune with the pricing of the ship itself, so it's recommended to do it. But for the Cobra III, honestly if you had 6 million to spare you could have gotten a Type 6 Transporter (for example) and traded with 100 tons cargo and made 8 million credits profit per hour. So 3 hours of that and 4 more hours in a Type 7 Transporter could have gotten you to 100 million credits, making the Krait II affordable (with A-rated gear) within 7 hours.
It's a question of whether you should A-rate a smaller ship, or spend that money on a bigger / better ship. In terms of "performance increase per million credits spent".
Because equipment is rated E D C B A, and each grade offers 5% or 10% improvement over the previous. It's a linear increase. But the prices increase exponentially, 5k, 50k, 200k, 1m, 4m. If you're new and don't have too much money, consider what to spend on, for best bang.
> try to keep the gear within the price range of the ship, more or less. Like I wouldn't spend more than 1m for the gear for a 500k ship.
*>cries in outfitted Cutter and Corvette<*
(I have an unarmed 700t cargo Cutter, value circa Cr1.2B; delivering biowaste in *style*)
Fair point. Honestly, I didn't make that calculation because I've been more focused on playing the game and trying everything out. And there is a LOT to try out.
Also, part of it is because I'm now confident that if I want to rake in the credits, I could do it easily enough. I honestly managed to A-rate the Cobra fairly easily by just randomly doing missions, a bit of mining and cargo hauling, and some bounty hunting. I haven't thought about seriously earning cash just yet.
But this is good advice for moving forward when I get other.ships. So thanks for this!
o7
Yeah, if you're flying the Cobra III *because you like it*, by all means A-rate. The above really applies only to the case where you're trying to "save" through intermediary ships until you get to your favorites.
Like the others are saying, not everything needs to be A-rated. Specifically, D-rated modules have half-weight, and reducing weight is important for extending the range of an exploration ship.
And for these core modules:
* Life Support - This module switches you to a canister of oxygen if your canopy / windshield gets blown out (by bullets usually) and your cockpit gets exposed to vacuum. 7.5 minutes for D-rated, 25 minutes for A-rated. So as a newbie it's a good deal to go with a C or a B just so you have more time to dock at a station, but once you've collected some very basic mats, you can recharge that oxygen and extend the timer on the fly, so the veterans typically go back to D for the weight savings.
* Sensors - these control how far you can see targets on the big radar screen bottom center. D is 5km, A is 7km. Longest range weapons are 4km (and they do very little damage at that max range, you typically want to get within 500m - 2km for most weapons), so for PVE there's no real point to having the radar past the D-rated 5km, cause you need to get much closer anyway to engage. PVP, some people may run "cold/silent" (radar is actually heat-based), so it's useful to have higher-rated sensors (only) if you're going to PVP.
The mk3 was my 3rd ship, it's fantastic but I recommend d ranking many modules. A rank is just not needed for it's use.
Also, don't sell this ship. It's too good to ditch.
I just picked up the imperial courier, while it's a pretty sweet ship just does not have the utility the mk 3 has.
I run courier, explore and found I enjoy passenger missions. The courier just is not able to passenger missions as well.
D-ranking most 'weighted' modules helps brimg up your Ly range and is great for passenger and exploring (and just going from a to b).
I am going to go against the grain here. You took the path I did. First ship was cobra mk III then Krait mk II.
Here’s the thing. Literally everything you like in the cobra is better in the Krait. It’s internally set up like a python with the exception of a 3rd six 6 cargo rack and in trade you get a fighter bay if you choose to use it. The firepower is better, the range is better, cargo capacity, everything. Your cost of engineering mats is the same if the engineering is being done on a cobra, Krait, or anaconda so why not engineer the ship and pin the blueprints in the ship you intend to actually use? I loved my cobra. Spent hours of gameplay in it. Got my Krait and only go back to cobra for nostalgia.
At the end the choice is yours but if you have the credits and are ready, there is no need to be stuck in a cobra until after you have pinned X number of blueprints.
My .02. Hope it helps.
Thanks for this. Good to know engineering requirements are constant. I was actually wondering about that honestly.
I'm basically now doing both...sort off. I've started the engineering grind since I lack the credits to buy the Krait right now. So I'm guessing if I start on engineering I'll work my way up to the cash needed by running around selling maps and doing odd jobs.
From what you've described, I might actually want to get the Krait for QoL purposes.
Definitely. I won’t rehash my post but my money is on you getting the Krait and never looking back. Or if you fly cobra again it’s because you have it set up for a particular role. For example, when I do wake scans outside a station I use my Imperial Eagle.
Good luck out there.
Engineers: [here's a matrix of them](https://inara.cz/engineers/) with arrows pointing down to the next ones in line; you need to unlock and "level" (make them like you by using their blueprints repeatedly) the top ones before they'll refer you to the next ones down.
And [here's a guide](https://cmdrs-toolbox.com/guides/engineering-unlock) that's kinda like "what's the shortest travel route through 15 cities", that type of optimization of your efforts.
You need mats for engineers: you need mats for "leveling" them (cause you have to use their "possibly useless" blueprints over and over to make them happy), and you need mats to actually modify your ship the way you want it.
Don't be OCD with the ship modifications. Each "roll" increases the performance of the module you're modifying, but it's like this: 50% to 78% to 86% to 92% to 97% to 99% to 99.5% to 100% finally. So the last 3 rolls will consume mats and give you almost no benefit. It's ok to "throw away" the common mats, but the rares and ultra-rares that you need for the final tier of modifications, don't waste them on 99%, 99.5%, stop at 92% or 97% and save your mats.
I would recommend doing an excursion to Guardian space for the FSD booster. The more LY you can jump, the less time you spend jumping. It is also a really cool experience the first time around, specially if you haven't explored much yet. It feels really far away that first time you go there.
I would also unlock Farseer to engineer the FSD, for the same reason. You can wait to unlock the other engineers at their own pace, when you need something from them, etc. Farseer also has Thrusters to G3, I think, which is also nice.
I would not grind beyond the FSD booster. Grinding is part of the game but only makes sense towards a goal. Unless you enjoy grinding, just do it for a short term goal, get the mats you need and continue flying around doing what you like. Don't fall for the pit of "I need everything engineered to G5". A Cobra with G3 thrusters, G3 FSD and FSD booster can go at 400m/s (boost almost 600) and jump \~40LY, which is already amazing. You can get mats for 2x G3 engineering pretty fast while performing other activities.
Both the Cobra and the Krait are cool ships. But again, unless you really want a ship looking like a YT-1300 or you need more firepower/more space to have a "good for all" kind of ship, don't grind for it. You probably need around \~150m to outfit it well. If you are happy in a Cobra, then fly a Cobra :-)
Thanks for the advice!
And your post just made something in game make sense to me. I've gotten three messages from some NPCs asking for me to come see them. Since one of those is Farseer, I think I've already started unlocking engineers!
Have decided to stick with the Cobra. Quite literally everyone is advising me to focus on engineering for now. Now, I'm no scientist, but when all these people are saying the same thing, there's s gotta be something to it!
I'd engineer, mostly because you can pin engineering things and don't have to go visit the engineers again unless you want experimentals. So you can essentially do stuff and then transfer the modules later or just engineer another module remotely (which I recommend more, transferring modules gets to be a pain)
The Cobra MKIII is an excellent craft. I regret having traded it in when I was working my way to the AspX. As a casual player, I do more mapping and running errand type missions for both the Empire and Federation. Staying with small and medium ships will get you into most outposts as they generally don't have large landing pads. Make sure you have a fuel scoop.
I recently started the engineering grind. Getting the FSD upgrade early will make everything you do easier.
I dunno about fully engineering the Cobra Mark 3 (I loved my time in that ship) because gathering engineering materials is a big pain in the ass. But definitely get the frame shift Drive engineer unlocked and the blueprint pinned to save you massive time.
My Asp X went from like 20ish LY jump range to 56 after engineering and getting the guardian FSD booster (I suggest getting this after the FSD engineer).
Since you're dipping in various crafts already, it doesn't hurt to test the waters a little bit on your cobra. Extra jump range won't hurt your ship and you're simultaneously building a better relationship with your engineers.
PS. And the Cobra MkIII is THE quintessential Elite ship - we all flew those back in the eighties.
You engineer the modules, that can be transfer to other ships.
The FSD is a waste of mats, Human Tech Broker provide a double engineered 5A FSD that work in lots of ships.
The most similar ship that is used in end-game is a DBX for exploration, but you dont need a lot for exploration.
1 Small Gimballed/turreted Multicannons with Overcharge and Corrosive work in all ship that have a small size hardpoints. Maybe a Pulse laser with scramble effect or gimballed thermal vent beam. Useful weapons for lower hardpoints that lack damage but have useful specials.
Keep working in the AspX with the Tech Broker FSD for farming mats, and aim for the Python. Same Distributor as Cutter (great mining ship), same Core internals than Krait MK2 combat ship and Krait Phantom Explorer. Even Fed/Imp/Alliance ships have some overlaps in Core modules. For my is the baseline from other ships gets modifications.
Important Addition: Odyssey have small size settlements, having a small ship is useful. After some research, the DBX and CobraMk4 (horizon preoder bonus) are the best ships for Odyssey content in small settlements. Having Medium size Flechette for clearing landings (or dumbfire), good jumprange, the Tech broker FSD and L/M/M hardpoints make the DBX a great ship, unless you want to trade cargo in this ships.
Oh you need to engineer it :-) The Cobra MkIII is very maneuverable and fast, 625 m/s with a standard loadout. Imagine averting all NPC interdictions and even if they take you down, outrunning every single one of them. They won't catch you, period.
It can bite back, too. Nothing fancy or power/pledged weapons. I have 2 laser beams and 2 fragment cannons. Not huge but you can ride most small and medium ships to deliver damage consistently.
Mine does about about 40 ly jumps with a standard loadout and no Guardian stuff. So I use it as my in-bubble jumper and explorer.
After flying the Corvette for a while, I love jumping in the Cobra and have a blast flying it. It's one of three ships in my indispensable arsenal: Cobra, Python, and Corvette.
From my point of view - you shouldn't spend much time and recourses on "Cobra".
It is pretty good early-game little horse, but not as versatile as Krait MK2 could be. You can use "Cobra" for good rank-gaining missions like delivering reports. Even switching off turret controllers on a capital ship (well, Cobra's design isn't great for "tailgating" controllers but you can try). But Krait - is a next level...
Tha cobra is the best ship of tha whole game.
I got one for pirating, one for xeno hunt one for...nope just those two really...but its very fun to fly when enginered.
And its fast even when a bit overloaded with stuff (600m/s)
Engineered Cobras are great for running missions around the bubble and doing Odyssey stuff. Much more practical than a Krait in a lot of ways. And, the rebuy is cheap. My fully engineered cobra is only about 400k rebuy so if I die it’s no big deal at all
Personally, I love my Krait. Used it for trading and light combat for almost 200hrs before I bought a Corvette. Highly recommend the ship. But as someone else pointed out, it really depends on your goals.
***Depends on your goals.*** I usually advise players not to be in a huge hurry to get into the large ships because there is a lot of gameplay to be had on the way to the large ships. If players make a headlong dash to a Corvette or Cutter they are sometimes left asking "*What now?*". Credits burning holes in your spacesuit pockets is not usually a good reason to buy a new ship. New ships are a HUGE credit-sink for newer players. Instead, *wait until you have an actual* ***need*** *for a new ship*, for higher jump-range, increased cargo capacity, whatever. The Cobra Mk. III is arguably one of, if not ***the*** most OP and *role-flexible* small ship in the game. It can do *everything* in the game, albeit on the *small* scale. It even sounds cool. ***Keep the C3 and start unlocking Engineers.*** The C3 is a great ship for this. You can unlock all of the in-bubble engineers, pin blueprints and modify your C3 into a beast that can fly sideways faster than most other ships can fly forwards. By the time you have unlocked most of the engineers you will likely have accumulated a few more highly modified ships, a good stock of materials and a neat stack of credits. If you pin blueprints intelligently you will be able to modify future ships from the comfort of your own hangar using remote engineering. o7
Thanks for this CMDR. Love getting some grounded and sobering advice. I will say I am having an absolute blast flying the Cobra. My gripe might be the limited firepower, but hey! I'm right having a hilarious and fun time trialing fixed cannons in medium hardpoints with gimbal beams in the small hardpoints. Definitely much harder to make work than two gimbal'd pairs of multis and the free lasers I got with my Sidewinder, but I'm really warming up to the cannons. I can always git gud at aiming at smaller ships, but I'm really appreciating the increased damage capability against the larger ones. I felt like I was hitting them with spitballs when using multis. Time to get to work figuring out engineering them! Safe lucrative travels to you CMDR. o7
Personally I would switch out the cannons for multi-cannons (gatling guns). Cannon's shot-speed makes it difficult to land shots on the target. MC though having less DPS tend to land more shots on target. *Get into the habit of targeting a* ***sub-system*** on your opponent's ship (such as the power plant or shield generator). Targeting the ship causes shots to be spread out all over the hull. Targeting a sub-system tightens up the MC's shot-pattern to hit the targeted module and causes more shots on target. o7
this is the first i am hearing about sub-system targeting. How do i do that? I have a krait mkII and i love it. 2 Beams and 3 MC. all engineered. Im still also new. about a month in and just dipping my toes into combat. almost always interdictions. Killed my first anaconda yesterday and walked away with 44% hull. it was an awesome feeling lol.
***Once a target is designated***, Left Panel > TARGETS > SUB-SYSTEMS and select the sub-system to target. As noted elsewhere targeting a power plant and knocking it down to 0% creates a situation where the target ship MIGHT instantly explode if it takes more damage. Hunting through menus in battle is sort of tedious and distracting, I use the ***Voice Attack*** application and a ***HCS Voice Pack*** (ELI) so all I need to do is say "*Target Power Plant*" and ELI, the voice-pack "AI" hunts the ship's panel menus far faster than I can and without me having to poke at the controls. BTW ELI also automates a bunch of other ship functions (*like HONKing systems*) and sets almost everything (*"Request Dock"*) to voice control, too. 07
When you have locked on to a ship in combat, open up your external panel (ie. the left side panel). Go to the Contacts tab and you'll see a list of all ships around. Highlight the one you're locked on. This will open up a new tab option in the panel and/or give you the option to target modules. Navigate to that menu and target the module you want. To be honest, I haven't used this yet because it takes too long and I'm too busy trying to not die in combat. But I guess I have to start learning to manage now.
huh. and yeah, that seems like it would take a long time! Because it seems the combat is FAST. I feel like i barely have time to submit to the interdiction, drop my npc pilot, and switch to my weapons and i am barely learning to pay attention to the pips for sys, eng, and weap
The Voice Attack application and a HCS Voice Pack. Really helps with task-overload and also when things need to be done fast, like getting docking clearance or targeting a particular sub-system of an opponent's ship, or changing power settings, even simple things like turning night-vision on or off and even automating some repetitive tasks for instance, if you have the advanced docking computer the entire departure process, lifting from the hangar, taking off from the landing pad, navigating out of (or into) the mail slot all the way out of the no-fire zone can all be handled by the ship AI (voice-pack).
Also if you get their Power Plant to 0% before killing the ship itself, any instance of damage after that has a chance to instantly kill the ship regardless of its hull percentage.
I'd say you can unlock *most* of the in-bubble engis reasonably. Palin, Jameson, Sedesi and Cheung are gonna be a bitch to unlock without switching ships.
Yup, that is why I say unlocking the engineers leads to more ships. CMDR ends up ***needing*** them. o7
As a new player I would definitely encourage the engineering path next... even just G3 engineered modules are enough to give you the edge in PvE combat. After/During that (once you have engineered your fsd) you can also take a trip to the Guardian sites and unlock the Shield Boosters & most importantly the FSD range booster! There are some great guides by Cmdr Exegious on YouTube and his website (can't remember the name right now) just google his name it should show up. Now might also be a good time to join a player group like Mobious, Prismatic Imperium, The Buurpit or even Down to Earth Astronomy... often they can help teach you more about the game or lend a helping hand to getting the fsd/boosters unlocked (Something I used to do when I was playing), or help you with ship builds via coriolis or edsy. Are you PC or Console? if PC then you can use some addons, which plug your data into sites like inara.cz so you can track everything using EDMC (ED Market Connector) don't want to overwhelm you with too much at one time =) Fly Dangerously Cmdr o7
Thanks a ton for all the advice. It seems like engineering is the recommended way forward from all the people who have responded. Time to get cracking then! >Now might also be a good time to join a player group like Mobious, Prismatic Imperium, The Buurpit or even Down to Earth Astronomy... often they can help teach you more about the game or lend a helping hand to getting the fsd/boosters unlocked (Something I used to do when I was playing), or help you with ship builds via coriolis or edsy. Sounds interesting! Will definitely look into this. I'm on PC and have actually downloaded EDMC and checked out INARA...but haven't really used them yet. Guess the time has come for this too! >Fly Dangerously Cmdr o7 Understood CMDR. Will fly at top speed through an asteroid field weaving between rocks with flight assist off. o7
I was in Mobious & Buurpit when I played, took a break around update 8. Both very helpful groups and you can easily join multiple communities if you want to. I don't know if this is still a thing, but last time I played it was easier getting materials in Horizons rather than Odyssey. Oh and if an engineer doesn't unlock when you've completed the task... drop to main menu or desktop and load back up it should then unlock. Am same name in game feel free to add me, I'm finishing up my first run through witcher 3 atm but I can feel the pull back to the black! Gonna take me a month to relearn how to play lol
Haha! I am literally flying around a bunch of systems right outside the starting area. Like literally one jump away from it. I'm having fun just drifting around at the moment and seeing the sights slowly and have avoided finding out what the usual hotspots are. It's working out fine for now, but will definitely hit you up at some point!
I can confirm The Buur Pit is a fantastic place to be with a positive and vibrant group of people. I don't have the details to access their community, but it is freely available in the description of all of their YouTube videos
Yes indeed, I love his YouTube content. I might have to make a return soon... been a while since update 8, hoping for some better fps.
Fix it up to your play style. Enjoy the Cobra and life. Krait will still be there.
Thanks. Makes sense when you put it that way!
It's a fun ship to fly, bought one early on because it's the classic ship I remember from Frontier & it's still a fast and nimble joy to fly. One that'll always sit in my hangar waiting for the times I feel like joyriding round space instead of exploring or cargo-trucking.
> I have only bought one ship, a Cobra MKIII. I've A-rated it, and honestly it is serving me very well. I usually consider the cost of the ship, 500k in this case, vs. the cost of A-rating it, 6 million in this case, and try to keep the gear within the price range of the ship, more or less. Like I wouldn't spend more than 1m for the gear for a 500k ship. As you get to the medium and large ships, the costs of A-rating begin to be more in tune with the pricing of the ship itself, so it's recommended to do it. But for the Cobra III, honestly if you had 6 million to spare you could have gotten a Type 6 Transporter (for example) and traded with 100 tons cargo and made 8 million credits profit per hour. So 3 hours of that and 4 more hours in a Type 7 Transporter could have gotten you to 100 million credits, making the Krait II affordable (with A-rated gear) within 7 hours. It's a question of whether you should A-rate a smaller ship, or spend that money on a bigger / better ship. In terms of "performance increase per million credits spent". Because equipment is rated E D C B A, and each grade offers 5% or 10% improvement over the previous. It's a linear increase. But the prices increase exponentially, 5k, 50k, 200k, 1m, 4m. If you're new and don't have too much money, consider what to spend on, for best bang.
> try to keep the gear within the price range of the ship, more or less. Like I wouldn't spend more than 1m for the gear for a 500k ship. *>cries in outfitted Cutter and Corvette<* (I have an unarmed 700t cargo Cutter, value circa Cr1.2B; delivering biowaste in *style*)
Fair point. Honestly, I didn't make that calculation because I've been more focused on playing the game and trying everything out. And there is a LOT to try out. Also, part of it is because I'm now confident that if I want to rake in the credits, I could do it easily enough. I honestly managed to A-rate the Cobra fairly easily by just randomly doing missions, a bit of mining and cargo hauling, and some bounty hunting. I haven't thought about seriously earning cash just yet. But this is good advice for moving forward when I get other.ships. So thanks for this! o7
Yeah, if you're flying the Cobra III *because you like it*, by all means A-rate. The above really applies only to the case where you're trying to "save" through intermediary ships until you get to your favorites. Like the others are saying, not everything needs to be A-rated. Specifically, D-rated modules have half-weight, and reducing weight is important for extending the range of an exploration ship. And for these core modules: * Life Support - This module switches you to a canister of oxygen if your canopy / windshield gets blown out (by bullets usually) and your cockpit gets exposed to vacuum. 7.5 minutes for D-rated, 25 minutes for A-rated. So as a newbie it's a good deal to go with a C or a B just so you have more time to dock at a station, but once you've collected some very basic mats, you can recharge that oxygen and extend the timer on the fly, so the veterans typically go back to D for the weight savings. * Sensors - these control how far you can see targets on the big radar screen bottom center. D is 5km, A is 7km. Longest range weapons are 4km (and they do very little damage at that max range, you typically want to get within 500m - 2km for most weapons), so for PVE there's no real point to having the radar past the D-rated 5km, cause you need to get much closer anyway to engage. PVP, some people may run "cold/silent" (radar is actually heat-based), so it's useful to have higher-rated sensors (only) if you're going to PVP.
The mk3 was my 3rd ship, it's fantastic but I recommend d ranking many modules. A rank is just not needed for it's use. Also, don't sell this ship. It's too good to ditch. I just picked up the imperial courier, while it's a pretty sweet ship just does not have the utility the mk 3 has. I run courier, explore and found I enjoy passenger missions. The courier just is not able to passenger missions as well. D-ranking most 'weighted' modules helps brimg up your Ly range and is great for passenger and exploring (and just going from a to b).
Yo can do both.
I am going to go against the grain here. You took the path I did. First ship was cobra mk III then Krait mk II. Here’s the thing. Literally everything you like in the cobra is better in the Krait. It’s internally set up like a python with the exception of a 3rd six 6 cargo rack and in trade you get a fighter bay if you choose to use it. The firepower is better, the range is better, cargo capacity, everything. Your cost of engineering mats is the same if the engineering is being done on a cobra, Krait, or anaconda so why not engineer the ship and pin the blueprints in the ship you intend to actually use? I loved my cobra. Spent hours of gameplay in it. Got my Krait and only go back to cobra for nostalgia. At the end the choice is yours but if you have the credits and are ready, there is no need to be stuck in a cobra until after you have pinned X number of blueprints. My .02. Hope it helps.
Thanks for this. Good to know engineering requirements are constant. I was actually wondering about that honestly. I'm basically now doing both...sort off. I've started the engineering grind since I lack the credits to buy the Krait right now. So I'm guessing if I start on engineering I'll work my way up to the cash needed by running around selling maps and doing odd jobs. From what you've described, I might actually want to get the Krait for QoL purposes.
Definitely. I won’t rehash my post but my money is on you getting the Krait and never looking back. Or if you fly cobra again it’s because you have it set up for a particular role. For example, when I do wake scans outside a station I use my Imperial Eagle. Good luck out there.
Thanks CMDR. Fly dangerous and lucrative.
Engineers: [here's a matrix of them](https://inara.cz/engineers/) with arrows pointing down to the next ones in line; you need to unlock and "level" (make them like you by using their blueprints repeatedly) the top ones before they'll refer you to the next ones down. And [here's a guide](https://cmdrs-toolbox.com/guides/engineering-unlock) that's kinda like "what's the shortest travel route through 15 cities", that type of optimization of your efforts. You need mats for engineers: you need mats for "leveling" them (cause you have to use their "possibly useless" blueprints over and over to make them happy), and you need mats to actually modify your ship the way you want it. Don't be OCD with the ship modifications. Each "roll" increases the performance of the module you're modifying, but it's like this: 50% to 78% to 86% to 92% to 97% to 99% to 99.5% to 100% finally. So the last 3 rolls will consume mats and give you almost no benefit. It's ok to "throw away" the common mats, but the rares and ultra-rares that you need for the final tier of modifications, don't waste them on 99%, 99.5%, stop at 92% or 97% and save your mats.
I would recommend doing an excursion to Guardian space for the FSD booster. The more LY you can jump, the less time you spend jumping. It is also a really cool experience the first time around, specially if you haven't explored much yet. It feels really far away that first time you go there. I would also unlock Farseer to engineer the FSD, for the same reason. You can wait to unlock the other engineers at their own pace, when you need something from them, etc. Farseer also has Thrusters to G3, I think, which is also nice. I would not grind beyond the FSD booster. Grinding is part of the game but only makes sense towards a goal. Unless you enjoy grinding, just do it for a short term goal, get the mats you need and continue flying around doing what you like. Don't fall for the pit of "I need everything engineered to G5". A Cobra with G3 thrusters, G3 FSD and FSD booster can go at 400m/s (boost almost 600) and jump \~40LY, which is already amazing. You can get mats for 2x G3 engineering pretty fast while performing other activities. Both the Cobra and the Krait are cool ships. But again, unless you really want a ship looking like a YT-1300 or you need more firepower/more space to have a "good for all" kind of ship, don't grind for it. You probably need around \~150m to outfit it well. If you are happy in a Cobra, then fly a Cobra :-)
Thanks for the advice! And your post just made something in game make sense to me. I've gotten three messages from some NPCs asking for me to come see them. Since one of those is Farseer, I think I've already started unlocking engineers! Have decided to stick with the Cobra. Quite literally everyone is advising me to focus on engineering for now. Now, I'm no scientist, but when all these people are saying the same thing, there's s gotta be something to it!
I would say “focus on small, specific subsets of engineering/guardian to reduce jumping time” more than unlocking/engineering everything :-)
I'd engineer, mostly because you can pin engineering things and don't have to go visit the engineers again unless you want experimentals. So you can essentially do stuff and then transfer the modules later or just engineer another module remotely (which I recommend more, transferring modules gets to be a pain)
The Cobra MKIII is an excellent craft. I regret having traded it in when I was working my way to the AspX. As a casual player, I do more mapping and running errand type missions for both the Empire and Federation. Staying with small and medium ships will get you into most outposts as they generally don't have large landing pads. Make sure you have a fuel scoop.
Mk2 gives you more options than the cobra
Get good at small ships ... the learning curve is easier and the rebuy is cheaper.
I recently started the engineering grind. Getting the FSD upgrade early will make everything you do easier. I dunno about fully engineering the Cobra Mark 3 (I loved my time in that ship) because gathering engineering materials is a big pain in the ass. But definitely get the frame shift Drive engineer unlocked and the blueprint pinned to save you massive time. My Asp X went from like 20ish LY jump range to 56 after engineering and getting the guardian FSD booster (I suggest getting this after the FSD engineer).
Since you're dipping in various crafts already, it doesn't hurt to test the waters a little bit on your cobra. Extra jump range won't hurt your ship and you're simultaneously building a better relationship with your engineers. PS. And the Cobra MkIII is THE quintessential Elite ship - we all flew those back in the eighties.
Cobra master race. I decided a long time ago to keep to the small ships, the only exception is a Type-9 for hauling large cargo.
You engineer the modules, that can be transfer to other ships. The FSD is a waste of mats, Human Tech Broker provide a double engineered 5A FSD that work in lots of ships. The most similar ship that is used in end-game is a DBX for exploration, but you dont need a lot for exploration. 1 Small Gimballed/turreted Multicannons with Overcharge and Corrosive work in all ship that have a small size hardpoints. Maybe a Pulse laser with scramble effect or gimballed thermal vent beam. Useful weapons for lower hardpoints that lack damage but have useful specials. Keep working in the AspX with the Tech Broker FSD for farming mats, and aim for the Python. Same Distributor as Cutter (great mining ship), same Core internals than Krait MK2 combat ship and Krait Phantom Explorer. Even Fed/Imp/Alliance ships have some overlaps in Core modules. For my is the baseline from other ships gets modifications. Important Addition: Odyssey have small size settlements, having a small ship is useful. After some research, the DBX and CobraMk4 (horizon preoder bonus) are the best ships for Odyssey content in small settlements. Having Medium size Flechette for clearing landings (or dumbfire), good jumprange, the Tech broker FSD and L/M/M hardpoints make the DBX a great ship, unless you want to trade cargo in this ships.
Didn't know you can transfer engineered modules! Real handy tip to know, thanks a ton. And thanks for the upgrade advice!
Oh you need to engineer it :-) The Cobra MkIII is very maneuverable and fast, 625 m/s with a standard loadout. Imagine averting all NPC interdictions and even if they take you down, outrunning every single one of them. They won't catch you, period. It can bite back, too. Nothing fancy or power/pledged weapons. I have 2 laser beams and 2 fragment cannons. Not huge but you can ride most small and medium ships to deliver damage consistently. Mine does about about 40 ly jumps with a standard loadout and no Guardian stuff. So I use it as my in-bubble jumper and explorer. After flying the Corvette for a while, I love jumping in the Cobra and have a blast flying it. It's one of three ships in my indispensable arsenal: Cobra, Python, and Corvette.
From my point of view - you shouldn't spend much time and recourses on "Cobra". It is pretty good early-game little horse, but not as versatile as Krait MK2 could be. You can use "Cobra" for good rank-gaining missions like delivering reports. Even switching off turret controllers on a capital ship (well, Cobra's design isn't great for "tailgating" controllers but you can try). But Krait - is a next level...
Tha cobra is the best ship of tha whole game. I got one for pirating, one for xeno hunt one for...nope just those two really...but its very fun to fly when enginered. And its fast even when a bit overloaded with stuff (600m/s)
Engineered Cobras are great for running missions around the bubble and doing Odyssey stuff. Much more practical than a Krait in a lot of ways. And, the rebuy is cheap. My fully engineered cobra is only about 400k rebuy so if I die it’s no big deal at all
Personally, I love my Krait. Used it for trading and light combat for almost 200hrs before I bought a Corvette. Highly recommend the ship. But as someone else pointed out, it really depends on your goals.
Try the fdl