Elite: Dangerous TEST Squadron

lex

Space Marshal
Jan 3, 2015
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rlex
Fed rank grind fest.
I'm not sure what FD done with fed / imperial ranks, but they are hard to achieve now. MUCH harder than before 1.5/2.0.
Done 3 days of "normal" playing, hasn't received promotion. 40% of rank, you're shitting me, right? But i want that federal corvette!
A little bit of google and i can give you some guide (i used those techniques couple of hours ago. Started from midshipman, ATM i'm Post Captain.

You will need:
1) ~10-15 mil creds for donation missions. That's for Admiral, if you don't want corvette and just need FAS/FGS it will be much less (twice or so). Yeah, that's gonna be boring. Make sure to pickup nice TV series for that grind. The Expanse, if you haven't watched it yet. Ranking 0-14 will probably take ~10 hours. Maybe slightly more.
2) Ship with decent jump range and good fuel scoop. Some fuel tanks will be nice too. And get some cargo hold (see last paragraph for info). Light exploration fitted Asp is ideal for that "mission", since you will be travelling to distant system ~500 LY away. Make sure to equip weapons as well.
3) Knowledge of smuggling. My promotion missions was 100% "Find shit in system X and smuggle it to base"

Let's go.
Open your travel computer, search 17 Draconis. Yep, that one, in the middle of nowhere.
Travel here, make sure you always refuel at 50% of your fuel tank. A little bit of safety never hurts, since i found shitton of unscoopable stars on my way to 17 Draconis.
Dock on paradiso (the only station here), open bulletin board and check for donation missions. Accept them, complete them, when they end relog to different mode (ie if you play in solo and done donation missions already, logoff, log into open, donate, logoff, then to solo again). Repeat until promotion mission appear. You can watch rank % progress in status panel.
Now, take a look at that promotion mission. If it sends you to some distant system (300LY away) do not accept it! Relog again and look for another. After some time (usually 4-5 relogs) you will find mission in close empty system. Be aware, however, that there is griefers sometimes. And it's very unlikely you got fully equipped combat ship in that shithole. Got mission with finding trade / military plans? Just open your navigation pane and fly in one direction. It says "look for wreckage", but i always find quest items on weak source signals and never on "salvageable wreckage". Found it? Good, back to paradiso, smuggle those items carefully, dock and....
Repeat until you get desired rank. Couple of evenings and you can rank up all the way to Admiral.

Got what you needed? Time for some money making before you leave. See those long-range smuggling missions with 5 million payout? Grab 5-10 with same relog technique (it's not exploit and ED will not ban for this, if you're wondering, everybody stacks missions), and try to smuggle it. Start from outposts since they often got zero security, and end with normal stations. Also be prepared for fighting interdictions - they will happen ALOT when you have those illegal goods. But ATM this is most paying job in E: D, it's also fueled with adrenaline (just try, you'll see what i'm talking about), and just fun.

Good luck.
 
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Metal-Muffin

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Aug 28, 2015
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Metal-Muffin
Are you guys still playing this? I'm looking to get back into it. But its so boring playing it alone lol.
I went exploring and now I'm currently about 4 hours from inhabited space. I've been there for the last 3 months and haven't signed back in because I dread the flight time back, and I don't want to suicide because of all of the data that I have to sell, so I'm stuck between a very boring rock and hard place.
 
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DrunkenTeddy

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Apr 28, 2016
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I went exploring and now I'm currently about 4 hours from inhabited space. I've been there for the last 3 months and haven't signed back in because I dread the flight time back, and I don't want to suicide because of all of the data that I have to sell, so I'm stuck between a very boring rock and hard place.
A friend of mine did the same thing. Except he's about 8 hours away. Said he loved traveling out there but now he's bored as hell and doesn't want to log on.
 

Okieflyer

Captain
Apr 12, 2016
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Okieflyer
This has been a really fun game so far. Now with all the addons too. I'm glad to see how the games are looking at each other and copying all the good ideas so far. No Man' Sky isn't even out yet, and just got delay until August 9th, and you can see other games trying to use some of those ideas.

One drawback of playing ED is after I've played it awhile I fly in Star Citizen like a Colorado Occupy millennial.

Steam: Okieflyer
Xbox One: Okieflyer1964
 

BUTUZ

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Hmm. Fdev are really shitting a lot of stuff up of late. Mistake after mistake. I haven't bought horizons yet and not sure I ever will give them another £30
 
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Okieflyer

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Apr 12, 2016
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Yeah I don't blame you @BUTUZ I was taken aback by the AI in this update. Cost me a bunch. However, I have figured some of it out now. The patch came out today. I'll post how it goes.
 

BUTUZ

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No I actually like the new AI - the previous AI was so useless they may as well have not been there. But they released the new AI on Xbox complete with engineer weapons that were devastating whilst we only had normal weapons, normal shields, and no boosts of any kind. Who in their right mind think that is a good idea?

The main two things that grate on me are 1. they treat PvPers with total distain, like as if the game was not intended to have PvPers in it. They treat powerplay players with distain too. Yet those should be the two most fun things to do in the game!

I don't agree with solo mode, and I don't agree with private groups. If you're gonna make a multiplayer game make it multiplayer for all, make it a core part of the game.

I dunno. For me elite shows no promise for the future. The devs pander to whiners on forums rather than just implementing their own vision. I guess they are scared of losing players as there's only a hanful of thousand regularly playing it. I mean test squadron has more members than elite@d has players!

Star citizen on the other hand is so promising and already betters Elite:D in many areas. I love the way the devs are implementing their own vision and if you like it play it, if you don't like it then play something else.
 

Okieflyer

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Apr 12, 2016
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Okieflyer
No I love the AI being tougher. I just didn't like the fact they seemed to have every over powered weapon out there.
 

steven Pelletier

Commander
Jan 8, 2016
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Splitloop
I just gave in to trying this game finally.
Bought it the other day and had some fun learning the controls and doing a bit of exploring.

Im really walking into this as a total newb. I havent followed this game at all and have never played the other elite games.
If anyone is still playing in the name of the Test Empire, give me a holler.
Will post in game name when im home.
 
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Montoya

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Oct 31, 2013
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I got sucked back in recently.

Its been a while since I played, but this past week I have put in a few hours and remembered why I liked this game.

There is a new Viper Mk IV

 
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Riekopo

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Mar 4, 2015
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The Gamescom stuff looks somewhat interesting, but I'm sure I'd get bored again after a few hours.
 

Montoya

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I would totally be into Elite full time if it were not for Star Citizen.
 

BUTUZ

Space Marshal
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I still play it on the xbox frequently but I do get frustrated with the destruction of powerplay and what a grind fest the engineers has become. It's pretty much ruined the game. That's all everybody does nowadays is spend all evening picking up materials on theyre own. Frankly if I didn't have my closer group of 6 or so of us left over from powerplay clan that still play it regularly, I wouldn't waste my time.
 
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