Cool story!
So DB I’ve done the not-taking-the-mission-cargo thing a number of times myself - last time was last week! I’m not sure but I believe the thinking is that you can take the cargo in multiple hops to complete the mission with it now.

Discretion is the better part of valor, as they say. I would have done (and have done) the same as you.

Those rocks you are seeing are where you obtain raw materials used in engineering. You may have little or no interest in engineering at this stage, but it's probable that you will want to do some eventually. When you see me saying my DBX jumps 60+ that is only possible through engineering. So while you are still finding roaming around in the SRV fun, you should take advantage and grab some of these raw materials for use later. To do so you need to shoot the rock. It will explode like a pinata and spill out things like iron, phosphorous, nickle, chromium, arsenic and the sort. Deploy the SRV scoop and drive over each fragment and you've got it. These 'mats' take up no cargo space.

You can see what materials a planet has in the system map. Most are useful. Arsenic is one you should grab whenever possible.

Chucky that doesn't sound promising. I saw last night that I was completing scans just entering a system, automatic like. I need to get up to speed on sensors, mapping and such.

JC, thanks for that. At least I am not alone haha.

Some of the really common mats will allow you to also do things such as make SRV fuel, ammo, and repairs. I found that pretty helpful last time I went SRV-ing.

That's a great point I failed to consider. They are useful even if you are not engineering.

Have some rep JC.

Ooops wrong forum....

Thing is, and I can't speak for DM who may continue to love it forever, but the shine of SRV operations can dull over time

So best to use it while it's hot so to speak.

So a couple of years ago I was attending a GDC (Games Developer Conference) and one of the speakers was talking about how, very broadly, game players can be categorised into one of 4 general groups (or are on a scale of the category, or are a blend of some or all of the 4 at varying levels):
Killers - they just want to kill everything, they think everything in a game is there for him to kill.
Completionists - they want to complete the story, do all the sidequests, get all the stuff, the best stuff. (I believe some of that is expressed in this thread with the ship gathering, riches & status etc :)).
Team players - they don't particularly mind what they play, but they want to play on and/or against a team.

And I come right smack-bang in the middle of the 4th kind - the explorer. I just want to see all the things and go everywhere. For me, the main thing about the SRV is that I get right down to the surface and see things really up close from a different perspective to the ship, including seeing the ship. (I know there's a free camera but currently I'm sort-of roleplaying this.) If I were to wish for a change right now it would be more stuff to find, like crashed ships, derelict ships (in the void or among rings/asteroids) hidden cargoes etc.
I expect that the initial wow-factor will fade over time, but in around a year from now I hope to have a new rig with VR capability, and this will revive it somewhat.

And long may it last

I think eventually we will see more fleshed out ground ops. If we ever see atmospheric planets (and can land on them) I expect this to be a more well rounded aspect of Elite.

DM, there ARE crashed ships to check out. Just an fyi.

DM fair warning about the SRV and VR- it can be very very-sickness inducing. The first time I used the SRV in VR I got it pretty badly and had to stop - I should have quit for the night much earlier than I did and I paid for it. Then I found some settings that can help with that - locking the camera to the horizon, eliminating camera shake, and blacking out the screen when you roll it. That helped, but I still got queasy. I’m happy to report I was able to drive around with no ill effects last night so I’m hoping I’ve got my SRV-VR legs now!

Ooh - interesting I'll keep my eyes peeled.



Thx for the warning I'm sure I'll figure it out. I'm fairly resilient to motion sickness in any case, but if I suffer I'll roleplay it and just take it easier (I guess that's not strictly speaking roleplay... )

Jeez. I spent 9 straight hours on Sunday playing this thing. :/

Anyway, last night as I was preparing to finish I found myself in a totally rad system (can't remember its name right now, but it has a station placed between a landable planet and its rings and about a billion other landable planets, albeit very, very far away from insert point) and I thought it'd be a great place to make my home system. I looked into transferring my ships to it, and also so I could gaze upon my 3-strong fleet. I have an AspX now too since yesterday morning.

Anyway, when I went to that tab on the screen it informed me I actually have 4 ships, Sidewinder, DiamondBackX, AspX, and also an Eagle. Where did I get that Eagle from, did I accidentally complete some mission and get it as a reward?

Turns out that as an early adopter I get 2 ships at startup, a Sidewinder and an Eagle. Which is nice I didn't know this. It's not very capable, but is quite maneuverable, and is super cheap to A rate everything. As a jalopy toything it's a nice enough freebie

Did I mention I now have an AspX? Because I now have an AspX.

Congrats on the Asp DM! That's one of the best ships in the game in my opinion. It was my main whip for a very long time. Love the AspX!

Congrats on the Eagle too. Lots of fun to fly, but a paper hull, and crap shields. Good thing it is so maneuverable haha. I sold mine since I couldn't make it last very long bounty hunting. Eventually though I bought the Imperial version of the Eagle. It boosts over 700 m/s (with engineering and could go lots faster too) and is a joy to fly and peer out of

Four ships already eh? You are certainly on your way. Keep it up!

[quote=DM

If I were to wish for a change right now it would be more stuff to find, like crashed ships, derelict ships (in the void or among rings/asteroids) hidden cargoes etc.

DM check out the crashed Anaconda at HIP 16613 1A. Lots of grade 5 goodies to gather. There's also a crashed SRV close by to check out. Map the planet in DSS and these sites will show up on the nav window. You can also rinse and repeat for those goodies.

Wingy

I'll second the ASP comments from DB, I use mine quite a bit for just humping around, and it's SRV hauler as well.

I'll have to check out that Anaconda too, the one at Orrere was neat to see but a little disappointing in the haul.

Thanks for the tip I started out on my journey toward that place last night, after equipping my ship to be able to do deep core mining, so hopefully I'll find some new systems out there that I can discover and do some mining. I've not tried it before so I hope I have all that I need as far as I can tell the only thing I'm missing is collector limpets, which I don't think are essential, only convenient. There's a couple of nebula out that way also so I'll be interested in visiting those. It'll be my furthest trip out so far. Fairly well armed so I hope to be able to look after my fruits

No collector limpets will slow you down quite a bit, but it's still do-able. Personally I'd rather not have to chase down every chunk of rock, but I'm a lazy old fart.