Ok,got it,thanks adlabs

Yeah, it's never far from the original spot though, you just jump out further away than you'd think. Just look around again in the same area.

$&%! this game! is correct.

So I've been working on my trade rank. I've managed to get it to 25% Entrepreneur. But I thought I should maximize my return and bought a T-9. Got it all fitted out and engineered the FSD. Flew off to a station selling Imperial Slaves for a great price. Then used EDDB for a good place to sell 'em. Total profit would be around 3 million or so, which would be fine.

So I flew to the indicated sell-to station only to find the price had dropped significantly. I would get only half of what I was expecting. I guess I failed to check how long ago the info had been updated on EDDB. So I found another station.at the good price two hops away. It was anarchy, but I've got this. So off I went. While charging the FSD to make the second jump I was interdicted. "Ahh, you almost had me" is what I thought. The FSD would only take a few more seconds and I'd be gone.

3...2...1..Engage!

Nothing. I wiggled the stick to try to get the jump to fire, but I couldn't get the ship to jump. Uh-oh. So I panicked and now tried to follow the escape vector.

In a T-9. With 752 tons of cargo.

Yeah right.

Dropped out with the long FSD cooldown. Not my day.

B!tch!n' Betty informed me my shields were gone. Then my ship exploded and I ended up at the rebuy screen, which I haven't seen since last June. On board I had 11 million credits worth of very unfortunate Imperial Slaves. Along with the rebuy this little episode cost me about 16 million.

$&%! this game!

What I should have done is cancelled the jump right away and submitted. I probably would have been able to high wake out with no trouble. Lesson learned. I hate slow ships.

Oh dear. Something I'm all too familiar with. Losing a T-9 with full cargo is an annoying event.

I have evaded interdiction with the T-9 but I don't make a habit out of it.

Didn't I tell you it was superbly manoeuvrable? It's like trying to steer the QE2 through a slalom course in treacle.

Yeah, the problem was that by the time I gave up on waiting for the jump the escape vector had moved so much I couldn't catch it.

If I had tried to evade from the start, or if I had submitted I would have survived most likely. I picked the only course of action that would end in destruction. Yay

First, the full data for what a commodity will profit is now shown on the Galaxy map. Just change the map mode to "Commodity", and you can pick your commodity, and click through every station in a system to see expected profits. The only catch is that you must have visited a Commodity Market in that system, to enable access to the market data.

I use this all the time now, so glad to have it in-game.

And 752 tons of cargo... What size shield does that include?

My Type-9 has a Class 7A shield, and 4 0A boosters. With G5 resistance/heavy duty, this is pretty thick protection. When I've taken my Type-9 into Open play, I install a Class 8B SCB, too. This does limit me to 400 tons of cargo. But my shields are incredible. The Class 8B SCB provides a constant 18 seconds (!) of regeneration. I've had other CMDRs in Federal Corvettes blasting me with dual huge beam lasers, while I ran straight away, and they couldn't drop my shields by 50%.

One time I even deliberately cancelled my FSD charge and let a CMDR keep shooting at me, to see if my shields would drop. The massive SCB was so powerful, it fully nullified his entire DPS output. I was actually gaining shield health while under fire.

Shields are 5A Reinforced with 3 boosters. Was about 400 mj

My Conda can already do 400 tons, so I was looking for a big upgrade. I found it and liked it so much I bought another

I decided to park the T-9 until I can properly engineer it. Made back 60 million of the 16 million I lost, so that's covered

Just a blip.

The only thing I don't like about my T-9 is its jump range. I need to work on that.

Oh boy I just lost 3 Cobra MKIV's in quick succession on you guessed it,black box missions. This was my 'scooping ship' and I have to say it's easier to scoop with this.

I made sure I selected a different system on the LH panel so I could make a quick escape but it made no difference. By the time the FSD was charged I was done. 3 times in a row,same mission,trying to replace the lost goods and always by multiple ships. Really getting pi$$ed off with this. To me it's a totally unfair game mechanic.

I think the scooping ship is going back to the dealers,I'm done with black box missions for good.

Now tell me I chose the wrong ship!

I can't access that ship and so have no first hand knowledge of it's capabilities. But it's slow right?

What happened to the Courier?

After offering the advice earlier in the thread I decided to try these missions to be sure my advice wasn't bad. I used the Courier. I could only see black box missions for one black box. Even at Elite level. I dropped in, targeted the box, opened the scoop, and scooped and scooted. On one occasion I missed the box which allowed the NPCs to close the range, so I boosted away in a great big arc and they followed. When I had pulled them far enough away I headed back for the box, slowed to scoop, and boosted away again. Then jumped and turned in the mission.

For me I think speed is the key. If you have a ship that is faster than any NPC then these missions are not too hard, as you can dictate terms. The Cobra Mk IV isn't faster than most ships that might interdict you. This is why I recommended the Courier. It is faster than just about anything else.

Sad to say but yes I think that's the wrong ship. If you do not engineer, and do not use weapons, then you need to pick from a few very fast ships.

If you engineer them, you can choose from a much longer list. And if you fight them the list is even longer. But the way you play, you need speed. I can't see anything other than sheer speed that will improve your chances of surviving.

So I went on Coriolis to learn more about the ship I can't have

Un-engineered and essentially A-rated (D-rated sensors and life support) the Cobra IV was 222 top speed and 329 boost.

The Courier build I linked to earlier is 333/452. So the Courier is faster in normal flight than the Cobra IV is at full boost!

Your Cobra build may be better than that, but the bottom line is the Cobra just isn't fast enough to evade fire in my estimation.

A Cobra Mk III though is 315/451. That is fast enough. Probably. Unless it's an FDL or a Courier. Or a Clipper

Ship building is fun.

So I checked out an Imperial Eagle, and with the advanced performance thrusters it gets ....

434 top speed and 579 boost!

Are you kidding me? I am buying one of these tonight lol.

That's un-engineered by the way. Wow, that's fast!

Chucky why not the Cobra MKIII as it's a lot faster. Heck I used that ship to make my first 30m. Combat and freight back then, but mostly combat. That was before engineering. 4 pips to ENG and boost. As I remember it was pretty nimble. What shield and armor were you using on the MKIV?

Yes, I had an Imperial Eagle back a year or so ago. It had the Engineered thrusters with G3 Dirty Drives. I was boosting around 700m/s. Such incredible speed, and fun.

Yeah,I thought I chose the wrong ship.

Ok,Mr Bond,I'll try a Courier like I should have done in the first place

I've just started collecting those things you get at USS's and the like. The things that get stored in your ship for upgrades I think. Yeah,I'm such a pro player,I know all the right names of stuff

Wingnuts,I don't know about the shields,I just drive my ship through the accessory bay and see what sticks. They were expensive though.

Yeah Adlabs, I just threw G5 Dirty Drag on it and it's an incredible 559/746. That's like WAY faster than my engineered Courier.

And that's without lightweighting anything, or underclassing anything to save weight. Goodness gracious.

Shields suck though.

The Courier has amazing shields.

Still, I have to buy this thing. 559 normal flight speed hahahaha

In another thread I stated unequivocally that I HATE SLOW SHIPS.

Of course the converse of that is I LOVE FAST SHIPS! And wow is that fast. The Viper III can be engineered to be even faster I think.

Excellent! Yes, those are called materials, or mats in the Elite vernacular. You are on your way now, my friend

Or as Sgt Elias said to Chris in Platoon, the worm has definitely turned for you

Ok,I now have a lovely looking Courier that has a speed of 310/421. I'm not sure I can get that much higher without engineering? Anyway,I'm working on that next.

I don't like that cockpit support strut right in my vision.Anyone got a hacksaw?

Haha, I did mention that, so can't hold me accountable

Yes, that's probably about the speed limit with standard thrusters. If you venture to Deciat you can buy enhanced performance thrusters (5 mil) to get more speed and agility if you choose. It will drop the optimal mass, but even if you're over it will still be faster than standard 3A.

Still, 421 boost is pretty good. And with good shields it should buy you the chance to extend if you're fired on. Add some chaff maybe and you should be able to boost away from most anything.

I don't know if the fact you're picking up mats now means you're thinking of doing some engineering, but if that's possible, I'd recommend a trip to Maia to buy one meta-alloy. If you're going to engineer, this bonus weekend is a great time to do it. And you'll need that meta-alloy to unlock the engineer called Felicty Farseer. Even if you do nothing other than engineer FSDs, it will be well worth it. But maybe that's not in the near future. Cool either way. Maia is usually about 400 light years, depending on where you are. So it's not a trivial expedition with an unengineered ship. But it's necessary to get the whole thing going. This all assumes you have the invitation, which surely you do.

You would get the enhanced thrusters in the same place you unlock Felicty and can kill two birds with one stone.

I bought the Imperial Eagle and transferred some of the stuff out of the Courier for a test run. I'm getting 31 jump, 504/673 speed, and the thrusters are only G3 at this point. It has crap shields, and a paper hull, and no room for anything really. Not much use for it. But it instantly became my fastest ship by some margin. I'll find a role for it, even if it's only to leave the station and spend time boosting past all the ships coming and going