Hello Commanders! Thought I'd post some things I found helpful.

Use Reboot / Repair to restore shields to 50% when they have dropped. Takes about 20 seconds to work. Find on right MFD, Functions, bottom of page. Only do this when NO threat is present.

Travel / route plotting to find scoop-able stars;
GO to Galaxy Map
Select map type (2nd icon from right)
Select "Star Class" from drop down menu
Select ONLY Class A, B, F, O, G, K, M Stars
Select apply to route.
Now when you travel with a Fuel Scoop you will be able to scoop almost every jump. Almost. There will be a few exceptions I have found.

Feel free to add helpful ideas for each other.

Wingy

When travelling, look at the plot on the Galaxy map. If it's a solid line (orange), you have enough fuel to get there. If it's a broken line, you'll run out of fuel before you get to your destination. Check out your route to see how far back you run out of fuel and plan your fuel scoop stops accordingly.

When travelling, always bring a fuel scoop. Always. Might want to bring an advanced discovery scanner too for some extra credits.

If you want, you can scan the star as you warp in. Throttle zero or lower your throttle settings as soon as you come in, point to the star, lock the star, then approach until the fuel scoop starts. This way, you're scanning the star AND fuel scooping. Start using your advanced discovery scanner as well; it'll usually finish before the scanning is complete, so take a look at the system to see if there's anything interesting you might want to scan. If you're this type of person, you definitely want to buy a detailed surface scanner as well.

If you like doing the above suggestion, make sure you map target next system in route command as well. It's under Controls -> Targeting. Makes it easy to resume your travels.

Do not mock the docking computer module. Docking can be fun, but when it's the millionth time you've done it.....

Take advantage of the SimHQ Ship Assistance Program. This game has many, many grinds. Let's make it easier by getting you out of that Sidewinder and into something better, quicker.
Source

A bit outdated, so I'll have to fix it soon, but have a read of the Useful Tools thread to give you some ideas what mods/programs/sites you'd want to be frequenting for this game.
Source



And my most important tip for today -- when flying a ship near obstacles, pay attention and remember that big ships drift!!
Source

Found this Material Trader Conversion Info;
http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Material_Trader

Wingy

Good tips. A few more, all basic level.

1. Do not fly a ship if you cannot cover the re-buy insurance. Seems obvious, but plenty of players do it. It can sometimes be hard to get ahead in Elite. But there is only one way to go backwards, and that's to lose a ship and not be able to afford the rebuy. It may not be obvious, that you only get one shot at the insurance. If you decline there's no way to get it back. It's not something you can pay later. The way that ship sales work in Elite means not even buying the wrong, and expensive ship can hurt you. Only losing it for nothing can.

2. When bounty hunting, or in any combat zone, be sure you have no cargo onboard, or the pirates will attack you. On the flip side, if you have no cargo, and have not declared an allegiance, you will never be fired on first. Always be aware if the target you're about to shoot is in a wing.

3. Be sure to scan every target before opening fire. It must display 'Wanted' before you shoot. Even if it's clearly a bad guy, and all of your friends are shooting at him, and he's shooting back, if you haven't scanned him first you will be wanted too.

4. A (Hazardous) RES has no cops.

5. When selling a ship, sell the modules off first to maximize the money. You get 100% of the purchase price for modules and 90% for the ship. It's always based on what you bought it for, so you can't buy a discounted ship and sell it elsewhere for a profit (Frontier put a stop to that enterprise.)

6. Consider using a rotary for throttle, if your throttle has no center detent. I removed my throttle detent and use the antenna elevation rotary. It has a center detent and I prefer it in Elite.

7. Don't let the grind get you down. Set goals, and do what's fun for you. Burnout is inevitable I think aside from the most hardy commanders. Try as much as you can. Mining, exploration, bounty hunting, trading, planet scanning, assassinations, pirating, and lots more. Burnout comes when you're in a routine, grinding the same max way to your target or goals. Branch out, even if it doesn't make as much money. Ships are the obvious goals in Elite. Don't become too fixated on the 'next one', but always have one in mind to help give you something to work toward. A diverse fleet is fun, just make sure you take them all out regularly for the things they do best. If you never fly it, sell it.

When close to a sun and you're not sure if it's safe to FSD out of there,make the star your selected target.If it's red you can't FSD out without taking heat damage,if it's orange you're safe.

The callsign that each station addresses you with is ship manufacturer plus the brevity for the first three letters of your commander name by default. So Commander Joe Schmoe is Lakon Juliet Oscar Echo. I like to have a unique callsign for each ship, and in the options you can change it to use the ship's name instead of the commander's. A small thing, but the sort of thing I like

My 8 year old son Ben was granted the honor of naming my Asp X. When he saw it, it happened to be silhouetted against a bright star and he named it Dawnbreaker after his favorite sword from Skyrim, which has the same sort of halo light effect on it. So this ship is Lakon Delta Alpha Whiskey. The unique identifiers are a cool touch. Now everytime you name a new ship you'll run the brevity through your head to see how cool it sounds.

I'm always India Charlie Echo so that's cool!

Already a retraction of one of my tips perhaps. Was looking through the patch notes for other things and noticed this little gem

Attacking Wanted ships (player or NPC) is now legal even if the player does not know they are Wanted

That's cool! I got in trouble for firing at a ship that the po-po were already firing at, simply because I was 0.02sec too early with the trigger.

Bookmarks -- learn how to use them and remember that you can edit the name so that you know what that bookmark is for.

I name my most important ones with an underscore or asterisk, description and the original name. The _ or * keeps it at the top.
*Quick escape, messimino salvage station
_HOME discount shipyard

Names like that.

Yep!

Here's one that caught me out for a while, and maybe will help a new pilot avoid the same confusion I experienced.

When you see the Slow Down message pop up it is not an instruction, but a notification of forces acting on your ship. The gravity well of a nearby body is slowing you down.

I always thought it was a warning to slow down but I soon realised that my time-to-arrival crept up so I just added more throttle until I had cleared the gravity well.

This E:D section was pretty quiet until you arrived DBond

It's nice to see it get some love again.

Yeah, I do post way too much. But I'm happy if I happened to help give the discussion a kick start. There's so much to learn, and we have some really experienced vets here that are helping us noobs learn the ropes

But it was also a combination of the 3.0 release and RK's Questions About Elite thread that gave it some impetus.

Elite is a game that happens to lend itself very well to discussion, as there are so many variables, options, opinions, playstyles and things people want to get out of the game.

I've been playing on and off for 3 years and I definitely still consider myself a noob. There is still so much I don't understand but I've found my 'happy spot' and I'm comfortable doing that.

Noobs.....

I finally caught on to that. I noticed if I was varying my course to avoid interdiction that I got the message less often. I usually dive "down" from the planetary orbit plane and cut in. At first I thought it was the halfway mark and the ship needed to start slowing down.
Now I keep to the 7 second rule and if the time goes back over 7 I speed up again. Handy for avoiding interdictions when it seems like that last 7 seconds takes forever.

Avoiding interdictions, once I'm in system, I cut below the plane as mentioned, and go wide. Then zig zag in, always moving the rear of the ship from one extreme to the other going in, then at the end have a slow swinging arc up to the station, overshooting just a bit. They always seem to get me right before dropping out of supercruise, so keeping myself curving back seems to get them to overshoot me most times. I don't see many interdictions now. If they can't get behind you, they can't interdict.

Regarding cruising into a station - I've mapped my boat switch on the HOTAS with 75% throttle and 50% throttle. Setting it at 75% means I'll end up with a 0:06 counter for flying into a station which can be quite fast, setting it at 50% gives me a 0:09 counter which is somewhat more manageable. Manual throttle setting, I used to set it to give me 0:07.

As for interdictions, I always submit and just run away. My shields are enough to last a re-entry into SC, or if the enemy is manageable, I bring th guns out and get me some bounty This is why I prefer trading in a Cutter or Anaconda; I'm not totally helpless if I get interdicted.

Sorry bud, but that's not necessarily correct. The alert pops up when the sim thinks you should slow down and has nothing to do with any gravity well. Try warping into a system, select a station and fly past it at speed. You will get a SLOW DOWN alert even if you're not near the planet at all.