Best way to get an Idris without paying $1900?

[DuckWatcher]

I've been wanting to get an Idris for a while now but I don't have $1900 of disposable income to spend on that kind of thing since I'm still in school, I saw there was an Idris-M in the referral program for 1042 referrals and figured that would be the best way since its technically free.

Would starting a channel on TikTok and posting SC content be a decent way to obtain that many referrals? I feel that it wouldn't be too hard to get some traction decently fast but I don't know how many referrals that could possibly bring in, it would take about 3 referrals a day for an entire year to get the Idris, and I'm not sure if its feasible.

If anyone has any ideas for what I could do to get 1000+ referrals I'd be happy to hear and if anyone has any other ways to obtain an Idris please let me know cause I'm about willing to do whatever it takes (aside from shelling out $1900 cause I really am poor as dirt)

 

[Shadow Reaper]

I think like most you are not grabbing onto the issue nor seeing it clearly. Paying for an Idris is not the bar of entry. Gathering a trustworthy crew who can and will work together on an Idris is the real task.
TEST had what, was it 90 Idris on last count? We don’t need more digital ships. We need ships’ Captains and crews.

If you work inside the confines of TEST with Montoya’s approval and gather a crew who then demonstrate their commitment to playing the way you are describing, I’m pretty sure TEST will find you an Idris. What you need to do is demonstrate you are the person who can manage such a crew.

That takes a lot of time and effort. If you’re in, you should talk to Montoya on Discord. If you have managerial experience, setting schedules for employees and such, you should point this out along with your personal plan of how you are going to make crewing your ship fun and exciting.

Owning a digital ship means nothing. Leading in such a way that players want to show up consistently, that’s the real issue.

I suggest, watch the vid at the head of the “Forming a Group” thread and ask yourself what the founders of that group did to gather a group of cadets, all in uniform, who line up and take instruction. That’s a small miracle, and that is just the first of many miracles leadership has to create to run an Idris. It is unlikely you can do this alone. The group in the vid are all very experienced players who have run many dozens of missions together and are working as a team to create a team. That’s much easier than planning to lead alone.

 

[DuckWatcher]

Well, although I've never captained an Idris I have my fair share of experience captaining relatively large ships, I used to spend all my time captaining a fleet and for a few months over summer I did have a three full crews and fighter escorts along with with schedules and we were successful, if all it takes is assembling a group, I have plenty of experience there.

I would be happy to captain any Idris and if there is an opportunity I will take it; however, if I am lending one from the org, I cannot use it entirely at my discretion which is what I wish to do. But, if working within the confines of the org is what it takes, I am entirely willing to do it.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

That all sounds great! Tell Montoya. Hop into Discord and find him, tell him what your interests and experiences are. You sound like the kind of guy TEST needs.

In some ways, we are all new at this; which is why I like to promote vids showing how others are getting it done. IMHO, the glue that is going to stick most successful crews together is RP. I know most players don’t have the patience for that but most players are not suited to large group play on the largest and most powerful ships in game. The big ships are worth nothing without great crews, so this is the art to be mastered.

There are very few instances where you would not be allowed to Captain at your own discretion. TEST has an extremely broad set of interests and exists primarily to aid players in how to find the fun. Montoya is not going to be a wet towel for you. Rather, TEST opens opportunities.

As a lower, middle and upper manager I can tell you, what Montoya wants and needs are players who don’t make demands on his time. Spend the time up front to be understood and then be as little drain on him as possible. He’ll be delighted to find a mostly autonomous group, flying regularly and able to come to arms should the need arise.

There are shockingly few advantages to actually owning a ship when there are so many available.

Good to have you aboard!

 

[DuckWatcher]

Alright sounds great! I'll go find him and tell him everything and start getting a crew together. I appreciate all the advice and help. Hope I see you around the verse sometime and have a great day!

 

[BUTUZ]

Listen these ships are absolutely meaningless compared to spending the money on real life stuff - buying a house not renting, buying a car not renting, spending time with family and friends.

Don't worry about the Idris it's just a bunch of pixels. It's not something you should be dreaming about or aiming for. Save your money for actual important things in real life.

There are thousands of other people silly enough to spend $2000 on pixels so just leverage their stupidity and fly on their ship whilst they sit in the dark cold house eating tins of beans! :o

Sorry to sound negative but i know people who have an impressive fleet but live with their mum and cant afford to eat properly. It's completely retarted.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Agreed. I would offer though, a suggestion for guys like DW above who want to Captain.

Most of the Whales in game don’t play much. They have more money than they know what to do with and think ownership is fulfilling, so they buy ships and support the project. Those ship owners 99/100 have no interest in raising and managing a crew.

Once you have a crew you can barter. Ask how often they want to play. Suggest the owner crew his vessel as a bridge officer say for example, 1/week and then Captain 1/month. Negotiate some more. Promise to find targets—you need to do this anyway. Negotiate realizing they don’t get to Captain at all without you, and they can’t really Captain without knowing bridge operations. Negotiate and then Negotiate some more. Everyone wins. The owner of the ship certainly deserves something for its use, and by negotiating you might just pick up extra bridge crew.

If a whale owner gets too pushy, remind them there are lots of ships to choose from, and you are offering super-high value with your super high-performance crew. This keeps your attention where it belongs, on training and entertaining the crew as best you can.

Oh and, kill things and take their treasure. It goes without saying.

 

[Sky Captain]

TEST had what, was it 90 Idris on last count? We don’t need more digital ships.

Umm, that can be read as TEST not needing or wanting players with capital ships. I don‘t believe that’s the case? If TEST has 20K+ members that can only field 90 Idris across all time zones, it might actually a tad bit weak. If the fleet can field only 90 Idris total evenly over 24 hrs per day, that amounts to roughly 3.75 Idris online per hour across all time zones. That assumes the Idris owners are regularly online. But the owners of those same 3.75 Idris per hour might only have a 33% chance of being online daily, so now we are down to 1.25 Idris online per hour. And that's not accounting for the Idris owners doing anything else when they online. If there's only a 10% chance of them flying an Idris when online because they have a dozen (or 100) other ships, then that gets us down to 0.1 Idris (or less?) per hour online? In other words, a 10% or less chance of seeing a TEST Idris online during a game session? Probably not unrealistic as players focus on core game play and settle into the realities of cap ship maintenance? If that's not enough, dilute the number further with TEST members being spread across multiple servers. Certainly major events may lead cap ship owners to bring them out in force, but day to day? Should TEST really be so boastful of its capital ship capacity that it doesn't need more players with them? I'm not sure the math bears that out. Indeed, the opposite may be true. It looks more like Test has crew cannon fodder available to man the guns, but might need more players to actually have capital ships around in real time to man.

 

[FZD]

Umm, that can be read as TEST not needing or wanting players with capital ships I don‘t believe that’s the case. If Test has 20K+ members that can only field 90 Idris across all time zones, it might actually be a tad bit weak. If the fleet has only 90 Idris total and fields those evenly over 24 hrs per day that amounts to roughly 3.75 Idris per hour available across all time zones. And that assumes the owners are regularly online. Those 3.75 Idris per hour might only have a 33% chance of being online daily, so now 1.2 Idris online per hour. And that's not accounting for the Idris owners doing anything else. If there's only a 10% chance of them flying an Idris when online because they have a dozen (or 100) other ships, then that gets us down to 0.12 Idris per hour online? In other words a 10% chance of seeing a TEST Idris during a game session? Probably not unrealistic, eh, as players focus on core game play and settle into the realities of capital ship maintenance? If that's not enough, dilute the number further with TEST members being spread across multiple servers. Certainly major events may lead cap ship owners to bring them out in force, but is Test so boastful of its capital ship capacity that it doesn't need more of them? I'm not sure the math would bear that out. Indeed, the opposite may be true. It looks more like Test has cannon fodder available to man the guns, but it might need more capital ships for them to report for duty on if the fleet has only 90 Idris.

Very valid, but I think we have way more than 90. Out of the 20k members, only 4.2k have made an introduction thread on the forums, and beyond that the number of guys actually active on the forums is like 10-100 depending on your definition of "active."
So I doubt any census count about how many ships we got would ever get anywhere close to the actual number.

Though, then again, those who aren't really active on forums (or on discord) would be less likely to come field an Idris for the glory of TEST.

Ehh, I still reach the same conclusion as you though, further adding to the plurality of Idrises we have wouldn't hurt.

 

[Montoya]

TEST had what, was it 90 Idris on last count?

When did this count happen? 2013?

We have over 3000, but it makes no difference, most of us use them for box delivery missions.

If anyone has any ideas for what I could do to get 1000+ referrals

Google ads leading to the registration page on RSI with the link of your referral. But if it was so easy to do, then everybody would be doing it.

I would suggest you do not worry about it. The org has so many ships lying around that any number of people will lend you one when ever you want.

Dont bother spending the money.

 

[Halvix]

That $1900 would be better off spent on PC upgrades for when SC finally has all of it's features in 2042. By then that amount might not even be enough to buy a stick of RAM.

 

[Wolfy]

Easiest way to get an Idris is just to snatch one of the free ones in the verse. Lots of folks are bad about ship security and it's quite easy to fly a fighter into an idris and board it :3

 

[Thugari]

I have a few large ships, including a Polaris ( it was an impulse buy that i do not regret). From what i am seeing; i think sticking with smaller ships for the most part is best and then picking up spots on crewed ships till you find a crew that clicks with you to become more permanent with that crew ( allowing you and the crew to work together more as one unit which is vital to a ship surviving out in the verse. if i had a way to redo it i would probably have not gotten any large multi crew ships bigger than my Constellation Aquila, to me my perfect ship size is more like a freelancer dur, or a shiv, you can solo it yet also take 2 to 3 more people with you for teh day and have some fun. all that aside as more large ships come into teh verse you can count on me to volunteer to sweep a floor and chase down blown fuses in the heat of battle, i think there will be more fun in that than trying to find a full crew to many my own.