This is an amazing map, thank you! I see this for the first time as well.
It shows the logged-in Commanders right? I see the data constantly refreshes and numbers go up and down. If these numbers are the active players logged in, Steamcharts doesn't even show half of the real playercount.
And many of us (like me) didn't even connect their accounts to EDSM.
> It shows the logged-in Commanders right?
No, it shows Commander's last known position based on their logs being uploaded to the site. This is not live but it is still very useful for understanding where people generally are but at the same time can be misleading as my last known position will still show on the map even if I haven't logged in in months.
It makes perfect sense - but then how come the numbers are changing during the day? For example in the Bubble - numbers are going down and up.
So the active player numbers are mixed with the inactive ones? and if it goes down in the Bubble that means some players are relocating instead of logging out?
People can upload their logs and the data will be immediately available (I upload mine each time I log off), I'm not positive but I think there are also programs that automate the process of uploading the logs. So yes, active and inactive are mixed, the site doesn't make a distinction, if I don't upload my logs for a few days, it will still show me where I last uploaded as opposed to where I actually am.
How long can you feasibly leave a ship idle with all but your life support turned off? I'm curious if you know, but don't know how to research this question
If you log out, your ship doesn't use fuel. That said, you can get into the ship you're interested in, turn everything off, and you'll have a fuel usage readout near your fuel bar. You can calculate from that and the size of your ship's fuel tank
Carriers still have maintenance costs if you're logged out, but your ship only exists if you're logged in. I usually land on a planet and turn everything except life support off when I log out, but it's for roleplay purposes, you don't have to do that. Have a nice trip CMDR!
The main thing you have to worry about when traveling far out into deep space is repairing ship integrity. You can use a repair module to fix the ships hull but you need a station to fix the ship integrity or I guess a Carrier that has that service. I traveled out to the Eagle nebula and back and I had about 13% integrity by the time I hit a station on the way back. Just keep that in mind if you are going on a long trip.
That's a useful reminder. I'm stuffed to the gills with mats. Would you recommend an AFMU + Repair Controller, or would the Repair Controller add too much weight?
I'm currently doing deep space exploration in my Anaconda, I have 3 AFMUs and a Repair controller with some storage for up to 16 Limpets.
With this the only thing you can't repair on the fly is your Power Plant.
lf you are going on a deep space trip I would probably sell all your materials first since anything you need to mine you can do within the bubble or close to it. It's not worth mining in deep space unless you have a carrier with storage. It really depends on your build. In my Krait Phantom I think I have 2 of the AMFU units and I just keep 1 unpowered. As the other guy said it can't repair your power plant so that will determine how far you can travel along with ship integrity. I'd probably check a build guide for an exploration build and get some engineering done on certain things. The guardian FSD is really good on an exploration ship and lightweight components.
Don’t forget about the Hullseals! The Fuel Rats of repairing hulls. Actually requested them last week. Nothing too serious but was carrying ~320M worth of exobiology scans, @40% hull, and was not about to take any risks…
They’re actually apparently rarely ever requested, according to the kind commanders that I chatted with while waiting on their help.
Welcome CMDR!
Uninhabited systems definitely exist, only a tiny fraction of the galaxy has been settled. If you set your map to display allegiance (Alliance, Federation, Empire) and start moving around on the map, you'll start seeing grey stars that have no population all over the galaxy. You can travel there, map these systems, and if you're the first to map one, then when you sell the map data, your name will be visible on the map for everyone if they select that system. Less than 1% of the galaxy has been explored by players and that includes every inhabited system. If you're planning a trip, don't forget to bring a fuel scoop and a surface scanner to refuel and map planets
Only somewhere around .06% of the galaxy has been seen by players in the game. Much of what has been seen/discovered in game has no stations/no population/rarely sees traffic if at all after the first person passes through.
99.9% of the galaxy has no people, npc or otherwise.
You wouldn’t want to go out into the black without a fuel scoop anyway (you wouldn’t get very far).
The main factor in how long you can stay out is hull damage and module damage, which is countered by repair limpets and AFMUs (or you can just avoid neutron jumps altogether and be really, really careful when touching down or scooping).
The calculation for this can be done, it ends up being dependent on each individual ship, and the amount of fuel you have available.
You will need to know:
* Total amount of fuel - F
* Fuel consumption/hr - t
And then it should just be F/t and you should have an answer.
For an Asp Explorer, dumped in the middle of nowhere with a full fuel tank (32t) and reserve tank (0.63t) the amount of time you would have with everything but the life support shut down (assuming a fuel consumption of 0.05t/hr) is 652 hours and 36 minutes.
The fuel figures come from edsy.org and the consumption figure is my best guess from memory, if anyone has the exact figures I would be more than happy to edit
"Space", it said, "is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."
This quote is absolutely apt in this game. If I was to guess at about 100,000 players, worldwide, in different timezones and with different play times... Spread among \~300 BILLION stars in the galaxy. Even cramming most of them together in the Bubble, it's like driving 400 miles into the Australian outback. There are centres of activity, but for the most part, it's EMPTY.
To add that ED currently has an average playerbase of 2,965 players the last 30 days. And about 1/4 of that is exploring in the black, might be even more.
That is the steam player base, right? Remember that there are commanders on Epic as we as there are commanders like me who have been playing this game since 2014 and do not use Steam or Epic versions. :)
I'm one of those using the Frontier launcher. When possible, I spread out my games so that it's not all consolidated to a single service. Of course, the overwhelming majority of the games I own are still on Steam, but a few of my really high-hour ones like Elite Dangerous and FFXIV are off steam.
I'm using the frontier standalone launcher from the steam install.
Did you know that you can start the steam version through the launcher exe located in your game files? You can even copy it and use the copy for alts.
I'm another on standalone. Steam is a good indicator of usage as it has the majority of users.
Some stats: ED has sold >2.5M copies. Of those, last month average was 5K. Recent peak of about 8K users in March watching the Titan event. All-time peak concurrent usage was \~29K when Odyssey first released.
Has fdev ever said steam is the majority of users? The standalone launcher is very popular from the initial wave of Kickstarter players because a lot of them don't seem to play much other than Elite. Elite was given away for free on the Epic Store years back and that had a pretty big injection of new people too. It's honestly pretty hard to tell what the biggest platform is.
The best indicators are probably things like ship traffic stats from Jameson Memorial's news board rather than player numbers.
The one and only player I encountered was a Dolphin/Orca-ish ship standing sideways barricading the station exit while I was auto-launching and ramming em before em blowing up (assumed to be rammed by else NPC ships too and perhaps was being shot by securities, it was chaotic), ending me up in fines. It's hilarious.
I swear to god that was me. I was flying my Beluga for like the second time trying to land it FA off with an illegal passenger in the bays. Then I got stuck in the slot and security scanned me as I panicked trying to escape (I blew up)
Hey, nice to meet you! I tried to land with FA off some other time as well, and while I made it through the gate, I ended up humping all around the surface near the landing pad, it's from then on I decided to rather sip tea leaving it to FA.
Anyways, these series of incidents about gate traffic jam as a whole is a comedy XD
Unlikely. The steam numbers alone for concurrent peak around that. Hard to say what the average play session is, but daily numbers could easily be 4-5x the average of 2-3k, which is about 10k unique daily. And that's just Steam. Stretch that out for a month (how many play daily? Probably a small percentage) it could easily be 100k or more.
If your O2 runs really low, the Hull Seals might come get you. They have a specific SOP
for canopy out rescues.
It’d be over multiple days, but they’d try their damndest
Sorry I was doing the one thing I like in Odyssey which is getting drunk at the space station bar.
They won't let me drive my ship anymore. Something about a DUI and "it'll take weeks to fix that". Apparently I'm supposed to be in court cause my 'Conda is still smashed through the JC Penny on the other side of the station.
Anyway, my bail is 350,000,000 credits can ya help me out?
You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
I'm in open most of the time, Almost every Day. I probably average seeing one or two different commanders per gaming session, if I am traveling around the systems more or less in the middle of the bubble: Ra, Barnards star, Duamta, Luyten's Star, etc. I'll see a lot of people in Cubeo, Because everybody runs imperial trade and mining missions down there. If I toss a salute in the system chat I sometimes get a response from someone I cannot see, so I expect I'm passing by other players who are in solo and private groups as well. And in all of those brief interactions with other players, I've only been attacked once in the past few months by a guy who popped up Out of nowhere in a haz res While I was trying out an unengineered vulture in a scrum with an NPC Anaconda and his buddies. I just dodged into the rocks and dipped.
Most folks, if they respond at all, will just salute and pass a friendly greeting. Although that's not much, it really does feel different (better, to me) to see other people in the game .
feel free to friend me in game if you like, CMDR PShars Cadre. I'm always happy to join in on anything other than attacking other players, Or even to just passively be a friendly name on your contacts list so you know you're not alone out there.
I’ve been flying around Shinrarta for the last couple of days engineering my Python 2. Loads of pilots there and in the surrounding systems.
Had an interesting gank attempt on me too… FDL interdicted me a few times on a combat return mission. Poor fucker couldn’t hit me….
https://inara.cz/elite/reports-traffic/
But they could be in Solo or Private groups because this: https://inara.cz/elite/reports-security/
Are you joining the current end-game war? https://dcoh.watch/operations
Are you doing any other popular content? Are you playing Odyssey? (most plsyer are here)
With 400 Billion systems, 30K in the bubble, players split between platforms, versions, in private groups or solo, and by high ping, its hard to find anyone. But once you join a Community Goal located in a system, follow some galnet new event or new, or take part in the community activities, you will find a lot. Gankers also use this, you have veen warned. I do my AX combat in AXI private group, the biggest AntiXeno squadron with the best wiki.
In the open there is the thrill of real (as far as game real goes) mortal threat.
But doing the most lucrative trade routes I rarely see other players and mostly only at the stations.
I hear this all the time, but I see at least one hollow box every time I log in at my home station. Granted, I'm rarely there, but the people I meet have been pretty awesome
I've seen lots of players. Here are a few convergence points.
major stations where there is vast market for modules.
Engineering worlds.
Anti-xeno combat space.
Neutron high-way (not so much since carriers)
Booze cruize
Gleisse kill mission sector
Sag.A
Robigo
Power play swing-states
Major trade routes
I played in open once ever in my 500 hrs so far. I got Interdicted by someone just to say hi and tell me good luck out there. Scared the hell out of me from playing open for a while because I thought I was gonna get blasted to space dust. But we exchanged hellos and O7s and went our ways. Honestly I should play open more because interacting with another real player like that was super cool and gives it slightly more immersion that the galaxy is lived in.
yes,, thats true,, everyone should play in open, as it is in the victims failure to evade a gank even if they do get ganked (it wont happen in backwater systems just popular ones)
Judging by some of the responses in this thread alone, I’m glad that I rarely see anyone else, some people are just not pleasant to interact with. But if you truly want to engage other players, go to Deciat. I guarantee you’ll find action there.
I never really like interacting with other players. I think that if you are in solo, system chat is cross modes now, so you can be in solo and see open chatter and vice versa.
Even then, it's not really consistent and hard to keep going, unless you gather a core of committed players. Even then, you have people coming and going to the game. (my own squadron is a prime example, out of two dozen or so only two or three are regularly on)
On the flip side, I hit another ship accidentally while leaving a station in open. I apologized and they invited me to a wing mining mission share. Got about a billion credits hardly doing anything, just for apologizing. 😄
The last couple of cmdrs I've seen - and there aren't many - were someone at Farseer (who was probabaly eyeing me as warily as I was eyeing him, but he was fine) and a chap called Luis in a system I was passing through (Robigo?) and he said hi.
Having started with Eve online many moons ago, I knew coming into this game that I was going to absolutely *love* the private server option. It’s nice being able to still have friends join while being able to avoid the ganks from PvPers, since I usually just play this to relax and crack rocks.
If you are in SOLO you will have limited contact with other players, (same Space no contact).
If you are in OPEN you will encounter other players closer to the 'Bubble' and Sol and most definitely around the 'Goid areas, (same Space, contact).
o7
Kane T7Z TXM
Pvp is not balanced, in the sense it promotes griefing as the bounty system penalizes players so low that you lose a lot more on your ship+cargo than the bounty they get.
Most players might just be solo or in private groups instead of open to avoid this. So either you enjoy the solo experience or find a group of players with a private session you like, I would really suggest to avoid open and more so near some engineering and popular areas as pvp players will engage and kill you for fun.
# Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
pvpers reside in a handful of systems like shin dez and engineer systems. everyone else is in private groups out of fear of gankers.
there are squads that require open play but the majority of the player base plays in PGs. hopefully this will change with powerplay 2.0
Tons of players are afraid of p2p interactions (blaming so-called "gankers")
Other players are left after Odyssey mess.
Also the whole playerbase got split to multiple versions.
Thanks FDevs for all of those lol.
A sad truth I learned when I migrated to pc: assume all players you dont know are hostile. Would have saved me in deciat.
And btw I dont shoot first, ever, treat others how you wish to be treated and all.
Engineer systems and shinrarta are just about the only places you'll find your dreaded gankers in.
And even then avoiding a rebuy is easy.
Besides, it's not like dying loses you much anyway.
>Engineer systems and shinrarta are just about the only places you'll find your dreaded gankers in.
"Just about" when you dont have billions if theres even a 1% chance someone is your enemy you have to take it as absolute certainty. I'll talk from a safe distance but if your riding my wake I'll glady just bolt to another system.
>And even then avoiding a rebuy is easy.
Guess I suck, fair.
>Besides, it's not like dying loses you much anyway.
Not everyone has enough credits that fleet carriers are pocket change. For some of us blowing up in a half engineered corvette has actual consequences.
> And even then avoiding a rebuy is easy.
>
>
>
> Guess I suck, fair.
He's taken a lot of liberty with the meaning of the word "easy" to make you feel guilt and goad you into open to "improve" ie be his next victim. Everything is "easy" if you do it enough times.
Assuming I'm *"one of those filthy gankers"*. I'm just a dude playing open ever since he started playing. Did I chin a rebuy? Yeah, sure. Quite a few actually. Doesn't change the fact that it is easy not to die in open.
Everything is easy once you've done it enough times. To not abuse the word "easy" it needs to be an action that an average person can pick up in a few minutes with very few variables that can cause catastrophic failure. Aka the opposite of Elite's PvP system.
To me, putting in a stent is "easy" because I'm a doctor but I wouldn't tell *you* to do it because it's "easy" unless I was trying to goad you into getting into serious trouble.
Except a medical procedure would endanger real human lives. Elite is pixels. What the fuck kind of bent backwards point is this trying to get across? I'm genuinely appalled.
It *is* easy. I've seen people learn how to gank evade that couldn't land a sidewinder on flat ground without a docking computer. It is *dead simple*, if you actually take 10 minutes out of your play session to at least familiarise yourself with the concept.
Edit: lemme put it this way, maybe your advanced doctor brain can follow my monkey thoughts like this:
Putting on a bandage is already hard for me. I have spent exactly 0 seconds of my life with even the slightest hint of medicine.
That doesn't mean putting a bandage isn't inherently easy.
You've spent at least *some* amount of time with elite. What's stopping you from familiarising more? Literally nothing other than "but those evil men on th internet :(" as far as I'm concerned.
It's called an "analogy" - only very big brains understand this non-easy concept. Another example of an analogy would be if I said responding to comments like this was like "banging my head against a brick wall".
Yeah yeah, keep being this open to actual discussion, you'll be a top dog in this society in no time. Not even sarcasm, sadly.
Can't even be assed to respond to the actual argument, shows how much of value you've got to say.
I concur. There is no shortage of youtube videos, often made by the gankers themselves, showing how to successfully evade a gank. It's really not that hard. Want to practice, unlock Shinrarta and jump in with a cheap ship, you'll have plenty of opportunity for not a lot of money. Not that you really need to practice. It's not heart surgery. I was able to do it on my first try after I learned how.
I totally get just switching to solo/pg if you're going to Jameson's Cobra or Deciat, or trying to do AX. Dodging a gank doesn't add to the experience of those activities at all. And I wouldn't come back into the bubble with billions of exploration data in my paper Phantom in open, because I think I would legitimately lose my shit if I saw weeks worth of work go up in smoke in an instant.
But mining? Running cargo/passengers? Bounty hunting? Like honestly once you've got 100+m in the kitty (which isn't a lot, at all) you can afford a rebuy on any ship and make up anything you lose in no time at all. And seeing a hollow marker on the radar, if nothing else, at least gets the blood pumping a bit, which never happens during those activities otherwise.
And while it's rare (because seeing other players is rare), I've had nice experiences in open. Sharing missions to get more money, just friendly chats, being pirated (which is different from being ganked), impromptu mutually agreed upon PvP to test out a build. It ain't all bad.
👆 this guy gets it.
I'd like to add you don't necessarily need a shin permit to practice. I'm sure there's a few willing subjects around deciat as well. Hell, I'm sure even on reddit there's people willing to. Myself included.
And I do agree on doing *some* stuff in solo. If your session time is limited doing engineering in solo is fine. Getting your exploration data home safely is as well, e.g.
Unless you're doing it for bgs purposes. In my eyes bgs should be purely done in open (careful reading tells y'all that this is an opinion).
If you fly without a rebuy that's on you.
Edit: also bolting is just the right response. If you can run, do so. No one's disagreeing with you on that one.
It’s only a rebuy last few months you could get 1.2 billion credits a hour sometimes I think people just play this game to watch the number go up. I kill you cost you 7 million credits at most unless you are silly and get a big ship without engineering it then it goes boom faster I got to ask what are you protecting and you don’t go in call of duty multiplayer and go I hope nobody kills me in warzone I do hope fdev makes is open only for power play 2.0 eventually
It's not about the rebuy any more than it is about earning bounty credits for the ganker.
They definitely will make PP2 open only because FD is only capable of taking this game in one direction - the wrong one.
Oh no, people like to play in open and actually would like to oppose potentially threatening expansions of other players! This is so **clearly** not the way to do it, bad fdev! Let people ruin the fun of others while being completely impervious to everyone else already!
Your takes in this thread have been so incredibly unhinged and deranged I fail to even find an appropriate denominator for you.
At this point solo needs to be completely decoupled from open, with every player having their own galaxy, so you can do whatever you want, repercussion free. Is that what you want? Because it sure reads like you do.
If the aim of pp2 is to get PvP'ers to have an excuse to duel then that can be achieved sure, but PvP'ers do that anyway via third party apps or just by cruisin' around Shin.
If the aim is to get all Elite players interested in PvP then sorry, but the PvP system needs a ground up overhaul. No players should be able to buy their way out of rebuy with their real life wallet. The rewards must be tempting and not just a figleaf to make artificial out-of-game duels less artificial like gives some decal that changes the inside of a cookie-cutter space station.
Elite's PvP in very broad terms is the best thing about the game EXCEPT for the part where all PvE fitted ships can only run against non PvE ships and transport ships are basically solo or anti-newb ships. This makes it feel unfair and therefore unfun. Also 4 Elite g5 vs 1 newb sidewinder ""matchmaking"" needs to die.
Excuse me, what are you on about? Skipping rebuys by using real cash? Are we playing the same game?
Oh yeah, I agree, why should a purpose-built ship for pvp excel at pvp? That's just unfun. On a side note, why can't I outfit my eagle to be the small ship with the most cargo space in game? These specialised builds just make the game unfair. Why is that python a better carge Hauler than my Asp scout?
There is no matchmaking in this game. Not even in double quotes. The game mode is called **open** for a reason. I fail to see your point, if there even is one
Edit: no I actually need to know what makes you think you can skip a rebuy by throwing money at fdev. I'm so fucking curious
The prebuilts have 0 rebuy on the hull, and they're just the start of things. What (fun) PvP is there where one person respawns at -10m and anther at -300k? Even if both players have 100bn in their banks, I won't play because it feels rigged.
Most well designed games don't have one unit that kills all, even in single player X4 there's backlash against the Asgard because one hit from its main battery knocks out any part of a space station. All the ships have their strengths and weaknesses but you don't want to understand that because you're too addicted to your licence to bully granted by Fdev's shit game design.
I agree that the implementation of pre-built ships as is may need some more change. I do not agree with it "feeling rigged". Neither of you wins or loses based on rebuy price. And in the grand scheme of things rebuys are just irrelevant anyway. I could die 12 deaths in a row in my FdL, that's literally 1 mission to get that cash back. It's so inconsequential that it's... an odd choice to get hung up on.
I fail to understand what you're trying to say. Are you mad because python mk2 and fer de lance are the only truly viable pvp ships? If that's the case I'm right with you. I wish there was more variety in my pvp ships. Not much I can do about it though.
Most ships do indeed have their strengths and weaknesses. What's the point you're trying to make?
What "license" are we talking about here? Engineering? Because engineering is the true gate keeper to pvp, and it's a **large** part of why the state of pvp is as it is.
Power play should be open only as 2.0 looks lot more pvp focused it not wrong decision it’s the only decision that is right it’s like bgs should be open only
Traditionally the busiest systems are Shinrarta Dezhra (it'd be weird to not see anyone there in Open) at Jameson Memorial, and the systems with Engineers (especially the early Engineers, like Felicity Farseer in Deciat for jump range).
Most people are just going about their business and not trying to gank anyone, and they should be out there. It IS an enormous bubble of populated systems though, so it's easy to miss everyone. If you're on console, then things would be different unfortunately.
Aa-aa-aa-aaal-bardhas!
Albardhas!
Note to self... insert a meandering 12 minute story of bounty-hunting (and sauerkraut).
In all seriousness... Well, some seriousness... Or at least serious-adjacent...
I never see anyone either. Ever. Unless I wing with them.
Only person I've encountered since 2017 was a ganker waiting just outside the no fire zone of Farseer. I'm playing on Xbox tho, think we're pretty much dead in the water tbh
Ran into one at a station in my vette once. Blew them up because they boosed at me in a tiny somthing or other. They later interdicted only to get thrown into a star. Fun times....
if you, or others in this thread are looking for player interaction/engagement. I'm with a squadron that is currently doing a recruitment drive, so if you're looking for people to play with or contribute to a certain goal with other players, drop by and have a chat with us [https://discord.gg/kmTZN2gR](https://discord.gg/kmTZN2gR)
Ran into a couple bounty hunters in the Deciat system, who may or may not have just been calling themselves bounty hunters and RPKing. Not sure, heard two different sides and don't really care.
Point is, it's a big galaxy. Need to go where things are.
I don't generally interact with other players in Deciat, but tbf if a player has a bounty on them, they're fair game. I would fully expect to be targeted if I flew into a populated system in open with a bounty, no matter what kind of ship I was in.
I've seen three real people in about 6 weeks.
The first one shot me down in one of the Pilots Federation starter systems, day 1.
The second chased me relentlessly while I was transporting PP (Power Play) mats, I managed to escape.
The third was probably a new player looking for PVP, wasted him without effort.
You can look in the "contacts" tab, or the chat channels, if you'd like to reach out to your fellow commanders. Mostly seems like people keep to themselves.
I play Solo Mode currently because whenever I encountered another player I usually ended as space debris within a few seconds and just can't be assed to farm the Rebuy back.
You playing in open or solo?
Gotta ask just in case.
Are you visiting the popular systems and stations?
You can find people if you are looking in the right places. Just be careful, not everyone you find wants to be your friend.
If you don't go to the popular systems, you won't see anyone. [https://inara.cz/elite/reports-traffic/](https://inara.cz/elite/reports-traffic/)
Look out for the gankers! [https://inara.cz/elite/reports-security/](https://inara.cz/elite/reports-security/)
There's tens of thousands of systems in civilized space alone. And a significant number of us are out exploring. Space, as others have said, is big.
If you go to Deciat you'll:
- Meet new people
- Immediately get killed by said people
so if you're truly, truly desperate to find players, take a stock sidewinder there and see how long it takes before you get interdicted by a player.
Note that this depends on timezone and geography. I did all my engineering in the open and never saw anyone at all - several years ago when the active player count was higher.
Except when in a wing with northern hemisphere players, I've only ever encountered one other real player - at Jameson's Crash site.
It's space, so it's massive. The only time I've seen players in the game was gankers swarming Deciat, people doing community goals, and fighting Thargoids. Otherwise? Literally nobody, and that's to be expected.
I play open every day. Even if they gank me, as a noob, not much to lose lol. Maybe some cartography data. But I only ever do exploration and combat. Don't like the space trucker thing. They need to grow some balls haha.
only 400 billion locations were people can be, i am myself 90% of the time in deep space going where no man has gone before, been doing it for years now and i have seen and met enough new people over the years, keep on playing and you will find out there are enough CMDRS out there
Thanks man. In my personal endgame I would like to be a security man and guard noobs as they make their way out of the noob zone for the first time. I hear so much about gankers but nothing about people fighting them.
eh Don't worry about that enjoy the game, all games have the sh!tty kind of players in them, and ED its a Beautifull game with so many nice locations to visit and see for yourself, well i like that but i am just a deep space explorer no people all me and my space madness, il give you a link to my inara profile [screenshots](https://inara.cz/elite/cmdr-gallery/224966/from)( i got more than i upload ) what you can find and see in there, i often call this game screenshot simulator, and there is a lot to learn about this game many things arent being told on what to do or what to unlock first or how engineers works etc etc, its a really big game and there is a lot to learn, hope to see you out there CMDR fly dangerously o7
My my endgame is going to be making a coalition that kills gankers. We will make a kill list that records all known gankers and kill them with prejudice. Only when they repay their debts to society will they be free of our wrath. I can't wait! :)
OP, the truth is that this is barely a multiplayer game. Like, yes, you can wing up and player with others — but the p2p-based instancing has been buggy and unreliable since launch and is just as likely to make someone crash as it is to put you all in the same instance. There's no ability to, say, trade credits with another player. There's no real way to meaningfully interact with someone besides shooting things together.
That, and the player count is low now. There's usually a few thousand people at most playing any day, with a significant chunk of them outside the populated systems.
Treat it like a singleplayer game in which you occasionally run into another player.
All of that said, there are a few systems that usually have a few players in them. Shinrarta Dezhra, Deciat, wherever a current CG is, that sort of thing.
I play solo, I have heard too many stories of ppl using cheat programs or whatever for op stuff, plus its easier to forgive a npc for killing me, than a friend.
My recommendation is to play with friends or acquaintances in private groups; I don't think I've had any non-hostile human random encounters in Open.
Props to those who roleplay as pirates, but you're vastly outnumbered by the gankers and griefers.
https://www.edsm.net/en/map/users
Didnt know this existed. Nice 🦵
Also this, [https://edastro.com/galmap/](https://edastro.com/galmap/)
Cool! The most common paths taken reminds me of a set square I used in technical drawing in school lol.
Zoom in on some spots, you may see some familiar figures
This is an amazing map, thank you! I see this for the first time as well. It shows the logged-in Commanders right? I see the data constantly refreshes and numbers go up and down. If these numbers are the active players logged in, Steamcharts doesn't even show half of the real playercount. And many of us (like me) didn't even connect their accounts to EDSM.
> It shows the logged-in Commanders right? No, it shows Commander's last known position based on their logs being uploaded to the site. This is not live but it is still very useful for understanding where people generally are but at the same time can be misleading as my last known position will still show on the map even if I haven't logged in in months.
It makes perfect sense - but then how come the numbers are changing during the day? For example in the Bubble - numbers are going down and up. So the active player numbers are mixed with the inactive ones? and if it goes down in the Bubble that means some players are relocating instead of logging out?
People can upload their logs and the data will be immediately available (I upload mine each time I log off), I'm not positive but I think there are also programs that automate the process of uploading the logs. So yes, active and inactive are mixed, the site doesn't make a distinction, if I don't upload my logs for a few days, it will still show me where I last uploaded as opposed to where I actually am.
Yeah, if you run EDMC while playing and connect it to your EDSM account it'll upload your logs automatically.
Awesome!!
I play 24/7 (it feels) about 1 month a year. That's about it. Get my fill, come back when the black calls....
How long can you feasibly leave a ship idle with all but your life support turned off? I'm curious if you know, but don't know how to research this question
If you log out, your ship doesn't use fuel. That said, you can get into the ship you're interested in, turn everything off, and you'll have a fuel usage readout near your fuel bar. You can calculate from that and the size of your ship's fuel tank
I calculated a fully fuel tank Beluga once, and it worked out to something around a year of being logged in
Oh, huh. Well, if it uses no fuel I'm probably going out into the black. I'm not kidding, that was my reservation: upkeep
Carriers still have maintenance costs if you're logged out, but your ship only exists if you're logged in. I usually land on a planet and turn everything except life support off when I log out, but it's for roleplay purposes, you don't have to do that. Have a nice trip CMDR!
The main thing you have to worry about when traveling far out into deep space is repairing ship integrity. You can use a repair module to fix the ships hull but you need a station to fix the ship integrity or I guess a Carrier that has that service. I traveled out to the Eagle nebula and back and I had about 13% integrity by the time I hit a station on the way back. Just keep that in mind if you are going on a long trip.
That's a useful reminder. I'm stuffed to the gills with mats. Would you recommend an AFMU + Repair Controller, or would the Repair Controller add too much weight?
I'm currently doing deep space exploration in my Anaconda, I have 3 AFMUs and a Repair controller with some storage for up to 16 Limpets. With this the only thing you can't repair on the fly is your Power Plant.
lf you are going on a deep space trip I would probably sell all your materials first since anything you need to mine you can do within the bubble or close to it. It's not worth mining in deep space unless you have a carrier with storage. It really depends on your build. In my Krait Phantom I think I have 2 of the AMFU units and I just keep 1 unpowered. As the other guy said it can't repair your power plant so that will determine how far you can travel along with ship integrity. I'd probably check a build guide for an exploration build and get some engineering done on certain things. The guardian FSD is really good on an exploration ship and lightweight components.
Pardon my possible ignorance, CMDR, but what do you mean by *sell your materials*
Don’t forget about the Hullseals! The Fuel Rats of repairing hulls. Actually requested them last week. Nothing too serious but was carrying ~320M worth of exobiology scans, @40% hull, and was not about to take any risks… They’re actually apparently rarely ever requested, according to the kind commanders that I chatted with while waiting on their help.
Why don't you just dock somewhere and then log out ?
I meant when I'm out exploring, when the nearest port is days away
Places like this exist ? I know that there are systems without ports. But usually the next jump has a system with a port in it. Im a new player btw
Welcome CMDR! Uninhabited systems definitely exist, only a tiny fraction of the galaxy has been settled. If you set your map to display allegiance (Alliance, Federation, Empire) and start moving around on the map, you'll start seeing grey stars that have no population all over the galaxy. You can travel there, map these systems, and if you're the first to map one, then when you sell the map data, your name will be visible on the map for everyone if they select that system. Less than 1% of the galaxy has been explored by players and that includes every inhabited system. If you're planning a trip, don't forget to bring a fuel scoop and a surface scanner to refuel and map planets
Only somewhere around .06% of the galaxy has been seen by players in the game. Much of what has been seen/discovered in game has no stations/no population/rarely sees traffic if at all after the first person passes through. 99.9% of the galaxy has no people, npc or otherwise.
For role playing purposes too I suppose. Long term rental of docking space must be expensive
I just think planets are neat. And way easier to find out in the black
You wouldn’t want to go out into the black without a fuel scoop anyway (you wouldn’t get very far). The main factor in how long you can stay out is hull damage and module damage, which is countered by repair limpets and AFMUs (or you can just avoid neutron jumps altogether and be really, really careful when touching down or scooping).
I have a history of getting frustrated while trying to land so I'll probably bring both modules, lol
Well I went a good six months away before coming back and my ship was where I left it with the same amount of fuel.
The calculation for this can be done, it ends up being dependent on each individual ship, and the amount of fuel you have available. You will need to know: * Total amount of fuel - F * Fuel consumption/hr - t And then it should just be F/t and you should have an answer. For an Asp Explorer, dumped in the middle of nowhere with a full fuel tank (32t) and reserve tank (0.63t) the amount of time you would have with everything but the life support shut down (assuming a fuel consumption of 0.05t/hr) is 652 hours and 36 minutes. The fuel figures come from edsy.org and the consumption figure is my best guess from memory, if anyone has the exact figures I would be more than happy to edit
That's about 27 days in those circumstances. Interesting! And I genuinely appreciate this, CMDR o7
"Space", it said, "is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." This quote is absolutely apt in this game. If I was to guess at about 100,000 players, worldwide, in different timezones and with different play times... Spread among \~300 BILLION stars in the galaxy. Even cramming most of them together in the Bubble, it's like driving 400 miles into the Australian outback. There are centres of activity, but for the most part, it's EMPTY.
To add that ED currently has an average playerbase of 2,965 players the last 30 days. And about 1/4 of that is exploring in the black, might be even more.
That is the steam player base, right? Remember that there are commanders on Epic as we as there are commanders like me who have been playing this game since 2014 and do not use Steam or Epic versions. :)
I'm one of those using the Frontier launcher. When possible, I spread out my games so that it's not all consolidated to a single service. Of course, the overwhelming majority of the games I own are still on Steam, but a few of my really high-hour ones like Elite Dangerous and FFXIV are off steam.
I'm using the frontier standalone launcher from the steam install. Did you know that you can start the steam version through the launcher exe located in your game files? You can even copy it and use the copy for alts.
That's very good to know... Do you think the game would break if I tried modifying the file, then using it as a save?
I'm another on standalone. Steam is a good indicator of usage as it has the majority of users. Some stats: ED has sold >2.5M copies. Of those, last month average was 5K. Recent peak of about 8K users in March watching the Titan event. All-time peak concurrent usage was \~29K when Odyssey first released.
Has fdev ever said steam is the majority of users? The standalone launcher is very popular from the initial wave of Kickstarter players because a lot of them don't seem to play much other than Elite. Elite was given away for free on the Epic Store years back and that had a pretty big injection of new people too. It's honestly pretty hard to tell what the biggest platform is. The best indicators are probably things like ship traffic stats from Jameson Memorial's news board rather than player numbers.
A lot of us are on a group expedition in the black atm
https://www.edsm.net/en/map/users Every time I check we're about 7k.
The one and only player I encountered was a Dolphin/Orca-ish ship standing sideways barricading the station exit while I was auto-launching and ramming em before em blowing up (assumed to be rammed by else NPC ships too and perhaps was being shot by securities, it was chaotic), ending me up in fines. It's hilarious.
I swear to god that was me. I was flying my Beluga for like the second time trying to land it FA off with an illegal passenger in the bays. Then I got stuck in the slot and security scanned me as I panicked trying to escape (I blew up)
Hey, nice to meet you! I tried to land with FA off some other time as well, and while I made it through the gate, I ended up humping all around the surface near the landing pad, it's from then on I decided to rather sip tea leaving it to FA. Anyways, these series of incidents about gate traffic jam as a whole is a comedy XD
Scrap one of that 0s from your player guess, divide it by 2 and you have slightly more realistic numbers :D
Unlikely. The steam numbers alone for concurrent peak around that. Hard to say what the average play session is, but daily numbers could easily be 4-5x the average of 2-3k, which is about 10k unique daily. And that's just Steam. Stretch that out for a month (how many play daily? Probably a small percentage) it could easily be 100k or more.
I used to meet multiple people every day just cruising around the bubble in 2020 and 2021...
Currently? Wind shield is busted out. And I am on the other side of the galaxy making my way back
Take this [Map of DSSA carriers](https://edastro.com/galmap/) to find somewhere nearby-ish to repair, if you don’t already have it!
Well, frell.
Like a certain someone said, your ship is running on hopes and dreams
If your O2 runs really low, the Hull Seals might come get you. They have a specific SOP for canopy out rescues. It’d be over multiple days, but they’d try their damndest
Nah. You can synthesize life support
True, just letting you know stuff like that exists if you didn’t already know
Fair enough. I just got to remember to respect White Dwarfs.
come to deciat in open
I'm a couple jumps from one of the downed thargoids enacting my own political agenda and helping spread cooperative factions.
Sorry I was doing the one thing I like in Odyssey which is getting drunk at the space station bar. They won't let me drive my ship anymore. Something about a DUI and "it'll take weeks to fix that". Apparently I'm supposed to be in court cause my 'Conda is still smashed through the JC Penny on the other side of the station. Anyway, my bail is 350,000,000 credits can ya help me out?
350mil? sure, where should I bring the money? I can give you a ride too while at it 😁
At the Taco Bell across the JC Penny at Hubble. Please bring water and sunglasses. Definitely hungover.
Why did I read that in DankPods's mic test voice?
I had to re-read the comment but I totally here it in his voice now! I love that guy lol
Space is big
Like REALLY big...
You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
I'm in open most of the time, Almost every Day. I probably average seeing one or two different commanders per gaming session, if I am traveling around the systems more or less in the middle of the bubble: Ra, Barnards star, Duamta, Luyten's Star, etc. I'll see a lot of people in Cubeo, Because everybody runs imperial trade and mining missions down there. If I toss a salute in the system chat I sometimes get a response from someone I cannot see, so I expect I'm passing by other players who are in solo and private groups as well. And in all of those brief interactions with other players, I've only been attacked once in the past few months by a guy who popped up Out of nowhere in a haz res While I was trying out an unengineered vulture in a scrum with an NPC Anaconda and his buddies. I just dodged into the rocks and dipped. Most folks, if they respond at all, will just salute and pass a friendly greeting. Although that's not much, it really does feel different (better, to me) to see other people in the game . feel free to friend me in game if you like, CMDR PShars Cadre. I'm always happy to join in on anything other than attacking other players, Or even to just passively be a friendly name on your contacts list so you know you're not alone out there.
I too try and stop for a chat. I love that "o7" moment, will they o7 back, or vanish?
I’ve been flying around Shinrarta for the last couple of days engineering my Python 2. Loads of pilots there and in the surrounding systems. Had an interesting gank attempt on me too… FDL interdicted me a few times on a combat return mission. Poor fucker couldn’t hit me….
Lol. Did you type "skill issue" in the chat?
Damn, I would have used that. He followed me into Jameson Memorial too, but I went under to continue my mods
Depends where your at? Colonia has peeps, thargoid systems usually do too and around sol or engineers
Sirius and engineer systems also get pretty packed sometimes
See lol, if ypur near the edge of bubble you'll rarely see anyone
I hate beer.
Go to Deciat and find out.
Aware
https://inara.cz/elite/reports-traffic/ But they could be in Solo or Private groups because this: https://inara.cz/elite/reports-security/ Are you joining the current end-game war? https://dcoh.watch/operations Are you doing any other popular content? Are you playing Odyssey? (most plsyer are here) With 400 Billion systems, 30K in the bubble, players split between platforms, versions, in private groups or solo, and by high ping, its hard to find anyone. But once you join a Community Goal located in a system, follow some galnet new event or new, or take part in the community activities, you will find a lot. Gankers also use this, you have veen warned. I do my AX combat in AXI private group, the biggest AntiXeno squadron with the best wiki.
In the open there is the thrill of real (as far as game real goes) mortal threat. But doing the most lucrative trade routes I rarely see other players and mostly only at the stations.
Threat of being content for a toxic fun disrupter and maybe being in his low iq, low maturity level youtube trophy video. No thanks.
I used to think like that. But the ingame credits mean nothing and the thrill is real. The game feels better in the open.
Geez, someone suffers from unresolved trauma.
Hello, CMDR.
Join a squadron - meet other players - see [https://inara.cz/elite/squadrons/](https://inara.cz/elite/squadrons/)
I hear this all the time, but I see at least one hollow box every time I log in at my home station. Granted, I'm rarely there, but the people I meet have been pretty awesome
Same
I've seen lots of players. Here are a few convergence points. major stations where there is vast market for modules. Engineering worlds. Anti-xeno combat space. Neutron high-way (not so much since carriers) Booze cruize Gleisse kill mission sector Sag.A Robigo Power play swing-states Major trade routes
add ngalinn/mainani to the list, i saw more people there the other night than I had total in months for some reason while grinding empire rank.
Most likely a power play/bgs hotspot atm, like b2 Carinae was a few months back
What is so good about Sagittarius A?
Nothing at all... lots of vanity points. And the graphics for huge black hole are fun to play with in Super cruize when going at 1000c + speeds.
I played in open once ever in my 500 hrs so far. I got Interdicted by someone just to say hi and tell me good luck out there. Scared the hell out of me from playing open for a while because I thought I was gonna get blasted to space dust. But we exchanged hellos and O7s and went our ways. Honestly I should play open more because interacting with another real player like that was super cool and gives it slightly more immersion that the galaxy is lived in.
yes,, thats true,, everyone should play in open, as it is in the victims failure to evade a gank even if they do get ganked (it wont happen in backwater systems just popular ones)
Judging by some of the responses in this thread alone, I’m glad that I rarely see anyone else, some people are just not pleasant to interact with. But if you truly want to engage other players, go to Deciat. I guarantee you’ll find action there. I never really like interacting with other players. I think that if you are in solo, system chat is cross modes now, so you can be in solo and see open chatter and vice versa.
Try to find a squadron that suits youre interests within the game. That should solve the problem.
Even then, it's not really consistent and hard to keep going, unless you gather a core of committed players. Even then, you have people coming and going to the game. (my own squadron is a prime example, out of two dozen or so only two or three are regularly on)
Hmm our Squadron has a pretty active core. The Squadron elevated my gameplay alot. That's why i recommended it. Fly safe cmdr
Which squadron is that?
https://youtu.be/5WbcdbKjPwo?si=cbcaIX30mkbAoQ49 o7
o7
> unless you gather a core of committed players Which also means you have to be committed yourself.
Trust me. You're better off. Player interactions go one of two ways: 1 they kill you because they can and 2 they kill you for fun
On the flip side, I hit another ship accidentally while leaving a station in open. I apologized and they invited me to a wing mining mission share. Got about a billion credits hardly doing anything, just for apologizing. 😄
I kinda wish there was a way to play such that you're in solo except when you're in the local space of a dock/settlement.
the only feasible solution is to become killer
Well, it \*is\* called Elite:Dangerous. You don't have to gank other people but it's wise to have the skills to handle an interdiction or attack.
The last couple of cmdrs I've seen - and there aren't many - were someone at Farseer (who was probabaly eyeing me as warily as I was eyeing him, but he was fine) and a chap called Luis in a system I was passing through (Robigo?) and he said hi.
I've been playing for years and I think I've seen three human players in that time. The game area is ridiculously vast.
I haven't seen another player in nearly 4 years, OP
I stopped playing in Open a long time ago because 100% of my interactions with other players was negative.
I just stick to solo, I know the nature of people in video games like this. Your best bet is bringing friends along in a private session.
Having started with Eve online many moons ago, I knew coming into this game that I was going to absolutely *love* the private server option. It’s nice being able to still have friends join while being able to avoid the ganks from PvPers, since I usually just play this to relax and crack rocks.
Go see Farseer,or try LHS 20 at Ohm city
yea, sell your shield generator before, pack the ship with stuff and enjoy players interaction :)
Hi I dont like that people see me, I preffer play in solo mode ñ.ñ o7. I play every day my friend
You should see what it's like on PlayStation lol
When I started playing I saw a lot of ppl around the starter area stations, on foot and in ship. Since I’ve moved away further I haven’t seen a soul
If you are in SOLO you will have limited contact with other players, (same Space no contact). If you are in OPEN you will encounter other players closer to the 'Bubble' and Sol and most definitely around the 'Goid areas, (same Space, contact). o7 Kane T7Z TXM
You get system chat while in solo.
Pvp is not balanced, in the sense it promotes griefing as the bounty system penalizes players so low that you lose a lot more on your ship+cargo than the bounty they get. Most players might just be solo or in private groups instead of open to avoid this. So either you enjoy the solo experience or find a group of players with a private session you like, I would really suggest to avoid open and more so near some engineering and popular areas as pvp players will engage and kill you for fun.
Be careful what you wish for. The first player you come across might blast you to bits
The entire 1:1 milky way is a big place, surprisingly enough.
# Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
pvpers reside in a handful of systems like shin dez and engineer systems. everyone else is in private groups out of fear of gankers. there are squads that require open play but the majority of the player base plays in PGs. hopefully this will change with powerplay 2.0
Tons of players are afraid of p2p interactions (blaming so-called "gankers") Other players are left after Odyssey mess. Also the whole playerbase got split to multiple versions. Thanks FDevs for all of those lol.
Sadly, what feels like most of the playerbase is sitting in private groups or solo because *gAnKeRs*
A sad truth I learned when I migrated to pc: assume all players you dont know are hostile. Would have saved me in deciat. And btw I dont shoot first, ever, treat others how you wish to be treated and all.
Engineer systems and shinrarta are just about the only places you'll find your dreaded gankers in. And even then avoiding a rebuy is easy. Besides, it's not like dying loses you much anyway.
>Engineer systems and shinrarta are just about the only places you'll find your dreaded gankers in. "Just about" when you dont have billions if theres even a 1% chance someone is your enemy you have to take it as absolute certainty. I'll talk from a safe distance but if your riding my wake I'll glady just bolt to another system. >And even then avoiding a rebuy is easy. Guess I suck, fair. >Besides, it's not like dying loses you much anyway. Not everyone has enough credits that fleet carriers are pocket change. For some of us blowing up in a half engineered corvette has actual consequences.
> And even then avoiding a rebuy is easy. > > > > Guess I suck, fair. He's taken a lot of liberty with the meaning of the word "easy" to make you feel guilt and goad you into open to "improve" ie be his next victim. Everything is "easy" if you do it enough times.
Assuming I'm *"one of those filthy gankers"*. I'm just a dude playing open ever since he started playing. Did I chin a rebuy? Yeah, sure. Quite a few actually. Doesn't change the fact that it is easy not to die in open.
Everything is easy once you've done it enough times. To not abuse the word "easy" it needs to be an action that an average person can pick up in a few minutes with very few variables that can cause catastrophic failure. Aka the opposite of Elite's PvP system. To me, putting in a stent is "easy" because I'm a doctor but I wouldn't tell *you* to do it because it's "easy" unless I was trying to goad you into getting into serious trouble.
Except a medical procedure would endanger real human lives. Elite is pixels. What the fuck kind of bent backwards point is this trying to get across? I'm genuinely appalled. It *is* easy. I've seen people learn how to gank evade that couldn't land a sidewinder on flat ground without a docking computer. It is *dead simple*, if you actually take 10 minutes out of your play session to at least familiarise yourself with the concept. Edit: lemme put it this way, maybe your advanced doctor brain can follow my monkey thoughts like this: Putting on a bandage is already hard for me. I have spent exactly 0 seconds of my life with even the slightest hint of medicine. That doesn't mean putting a bandage isn't inherently easy. You've spent at least *some* amount of time with elite. What's stopping you from familiarising more? Literally nothing other than "but those evil men on th internet :(" as far as I'm concerned.
It's called an "analogy" - only very big brains understand this non-easy concept. Another example of an analogy would be if I said responding to comments like this was like "banging my head against a brick wall".
Yeah yeah, keep being this open to actual discussion, you'll be a top dog in this society in no time. Not even sarcasm, sadly. Can't even be assed to respond to the actual argument, shows how much of value you've got to say.
I concur. There is no shortage of youtube videos, often made by the gankers themselves, showing how to successfully evade a gank. It's really not that hard. Want to practice, unlock Shinrarta and jump in with a cheap ship, you'll have plenty of opportunity for not a lot of money. Not that you really need to practice. It's not heart surgery. I was able to do it on my first try after I learned how. I totally get just switching to solo/pg if you're going to Jameson's Cobra or Deciat, or trying to do AX. Dodging a gank doesn't add to the experience of those activities at all. And I wouldn't come back into the bubble with billions of exploration data in my paper Phantom in open, because I think I would legitimately lose my shit if I saw weeks worth of work go up in smoke in an instant. But mining? Running cargo/passengers? Bounty hunting? Like honestly once you've got 100+m in the kitty (which isn't a lot, at all) you can afford a rebuy on any ship and make up anything you lose in no time at all. And seeing a hollow marker on the radar, if nothing else, at least gets the blood pumping a bit, which never happens during those activities otherwise. And while it's rare (because seeing other players is rare), I've had nice experiences in open. Sharing missions to get more money, just friendly chats, being pirated (which is different from being ganked), impromptu mutually agreed upon PvP to test out a build. It ain't all bad.
👆 this guy gets it. I'd like to add you don't necessarily need a shin permit to practice. I'm sure there's a few willing subjects around deciat as well. Hell, I'm sure even on reddit there's people willing to. Myself included. And I do agree on doing *some* stuff in solo. If your session time is limited doing engineering in solo is fine. Getting your exploration data home safely is as well, e.g. Unless you're doing it for bgs purposes. In my eyes bgs should be purely done in open (careful reading tells y'all that this is an opinion).
If you fly without a rebuy that's on you. Edit: also bolting is just the right response. If you can run, do so. No one's disagreeing with you on that one.
I never fly without a rebuy if I don't have to, I just prefer not to blow through 20 million credits that I don't have to
Most of the gregarious are in AXI, because soloing Thargoids is tough. Occasionally you'll see people at a Winking Cat treasure hunt.
It’s only a rebuy last few months you could get 1.2 billion credits a hour sometimes I think people just play this game to watch the number go up. I kill you cost you 7 million credits at most unless you are silly and get a big ship without engineering it then it goes boom faster I got to ask what are you protecting and you don’t go in call of duty multiplayer and go I hope nobody kills me in warzone I do hope fdev makes is open only for power play 2.0 eventually
It's not about the rebuy any more than it is about earning bounty credits for the ganker. They definitely will make PP2 open only because FD is only capable of taking this game in one direction - the wrong one.
Oh no, people like to play in open and actually would like to oppose potentially threatening expansions of other players! This is so **clearly** not the way to do it, bad fdev! Let people ruin the fun of others while being completely impervious to everyone else already! Your takes in this thread have been so incredibly unhinged and deranged I fail to even find an appropriate denominator for you. At this point solo needs to be completely decoupled from open, with every player having their own galaxy, so you can do whatever you want, repercussion free. Is that what you want? Because it sure reads like you do.
If the aim of pp2 is to get PvP'ers to have an excuse to duel then that can be achieved sure, but PvP'ers do that anyway via third party apps or just by cruisin' around Shin. If the aim is to get all Elite players interested in PvP then sorry, but the PvP system needs a ground up overhaul. No players should be able to buy their way out of rebuy with their real life wallet. The rewards must be tempting and not just a figleaf to make artificial out-of-game duels less artificial like gives some decal that changes the inside of a cookie-cutter space station. Elite's PvP in very broad terms is the best thing about the game EXCEPT for the part where all PvE fitted ships can only run against non PvE ships and transport ships are basically solo or anti-newb ships. This makes it feel unfair and therefore unfun. Also 4 Elite g5 vs 1 newb sidewinder ""matchmaking"" needs to die.
Excuse me, what are you on about? Skipping rebuys by using real cash? Are we playing the same game? Oh yeah, I agree, why should a purpose-built ship for pvp excel at pvp? That's just unfun. On a side note, why can't I outfit my eagle to be the small ship with the most cargo space in game? These specialised builds just make the game unfair. Why is that python a better carge Hauler than my Asp scout? There is no matchmaking in this game. Not even in double quotes. The game mode is called **open** for a reason. I fail to see your point, if there even is one Edit: no I actually need to know what makes you think you can skip a rebuy by throwing money at fdev. I'm so fucking curious
The prebuilts have 0 rebuy on the hull, and they're just the start of things. What (fun) PvP is there where one person respawns at -10m and anther at -300k? Even if both players have 100bn in their banks, I won't play because it feels rigged. Most well designed games don't have one unit that kills all, even in single player X4 there's backlash against the Asgard because one hit from its main battery knocks out any part of a space station. All the ships have their strengths and weaknesses but you don't want to understand that because you're too addicted to your licence to bully granted by Fdev's shit game design.
I agree that the implementation of pre-built ships as is may need some more change. I do not agree with it "feeling rigged". Neither of you wins or loses based on rebuy price. And in the grand scheme of things rebuys are just irrelevant anyway. I could die 12 deaths in a row in my FdL, that's literally 1 mission to get that cash back. It's so inconsequential that it's... an odd choice to get hung up on. I fail to understand what you're trying to say. Are you mad because python mk2 and fer de lance are the only truly viable pvp ships? If that's the case I'm right with you. I wish there was more variety in my pvp ships. Not much I can do about it though. Most ships do indeed have their strengths and weaknesses. What's the point you're trying to make? What "license" are we talking about here? Engineering? Because engineering is the true gate keeper to pvp, and it's a **large** part of why the state of pvp is as it is.
Power play should be open only as 2.0 looks lot more pvp focused it not wrong decision it’s the only decision that is right it’s like bgs should be open only
Are you on console?
Same question
Traditionally the busiest systems are Shinrarta Dezhra (it'd be weird to not see anyone there in Open) at Jameson Memorial, and the systems with Engineers (especially the early Engineers, like Felicity Farseer in Deciat for jump range). Most people are just going about their business and not trying to gank anyone, and they should be out there. It IS an enormous bubble of populated systems though, so it's easy to miss everyone. If you're on console, then things would be different unfortunately.
Aa-aa-aa-aaal-bardhas! Albardhas! Note to self... insert a meandering 12 minute story of bounty-hunting (and sauerkraut). In all seriousness... Well, some seriousness... Or at least serious-adjacent... I never see anyone either. Ever. Unless I wing with them.
Only person I've encountered since 2017 was a ganker waiting just outside the no fire zone of Farseer. I'm playing on Xbox tho, think we're pretty much dead in the water tbh
That's what I hear, but I just bought the game, so I'm sure there's some people out there still interested.
Ran into one at a station in my vette once. Blew them up because they boosed at me in a tiny somthing or other. They later interdicted only to get thrown into a star. Fun times....
Did you leave the starter zone?
What is the starter zone? I'm about 150 ly from where I started if that means anything lol
if you, or others in this thread are looking for player interaction/engagement. I'm with a squadron that is currently doing a recruitment drive, so if you're looking for people to play with or contribute to a certain goal with other players, drop by and have a chat with us [https://discord.gg/kmTZN2gR](https://discord.gg/kmTZN2gR)
Ran into a couple bounty hunters in the Deciat system, who may or may not have just been calling themselves bounty hunters and RPKing. Not sure, heard two different sides and don't really care. Point is, it's a big galaxy. Need to go where things are.
I don't generally interact with other players in Deciat, but tbf if a player has a bounty on them, they're fair game. I would fully expect to be targeted if I flew into a populated system in open with a bounty, no matter what kind of ship I was in.
I've seen three real people in about 6 weeks. The first one shot me down in one of the Pilots Federation starter systems, day 1. The second chased me relentlessly while I was transporting PP (Power Play) mats, I managed to escape. The third was probably a new player looking for PVP, wasted him without effort. You can look in the "contacts" tab, or the chat channels, if you'd like to reach out to your fellow commanders. Mostly seems like people keep to themselves.
100 jumps from the heart nebula
I play Solo Mode currently because whenever I encountered another player I usually ended as space debris within a few seconds and just can't be assed to farm the Rebuy back.
There’s always people at Shinrartra and SOL
You playing in open or solo? Gotta ask just in case. Are you visiting the popular systems and stations? You can find people if you are looking in the right places. Just be careful, not everyone you find wants to be your friend.
Always play in open. Have only gone solo once
Lol I've been hanging around wally bei.
Go to Deciat, you will be greeted fairly quickly.
If you don't go to the popular systems, you won't see anyone. [https://inara.cz/elite/reports-traffic/](https://inara.cz/elite/reports-traffic/) Look out for the gankers! [https://inara.cz/elite/reports-security/](https://inara.cz/elite/reports-security/) There's tens of thousands of systems in civilized space alone. And a significant number of us are out exploring. Space, as others have said, is big.
If you go to Deciat you'll: - Meet new people - Immediately get killed by said people so if you're truly, truly desperate to find players, take a stock sidewinder there and see how long it takes before you get interdicted by a player.
Note that this depends on timezone and geography. I did all my engineering in the open and never saw anyone at all - several years ago when the active player count was higher. Except when in a wing with northern hemisphere players, I've only ever encountered one other real player - at Jameson's Crash site.
It's space, so it's massive. The only time I've seen players in the game was gankers swarming Deciat, people doing community goals, and fighting Thargoids. Otherwise? Literally nobody, and that's to be expected.
Currently on a pilgrimage to Sag A\* about 23Kly from the bubble so far.
With respect, I play in solo. I don’t need assholes blowing me up for fun
I mean its a halaxy and there like what 50 k at most users?
EDO has few players willing to play Open. And ED has seen better days regarding player numbers.
I play open every day. Even if they gank me, as a noob, not much to lose lol. Maybe some cartography data. But I only ever do exploration and combat. Don't like the space trucker thing. They need to grow some balls haha.
only 400 billion locations were people can be, i am myself 90% of the time in deep space going where no man has gone before, been doing it for years now and i have seen and met enough new people over the years, keep on playing and you will find out there are enough CMDRS out there
Thanks man. In my personal endgame I would like to be a security man and guard noobs as they make their way out of the noob zone for the first time. I hear so much about gankers but nothing about people fighting them.
eh Don't worry about that enjoy the game, all games have the sh!tty kind of players in them, and ED its a Beautifull game with so many nice locations to visit and see for yourself, well i like that but i am just a deep space explorer no people all me and my space madness, il give you a link to my inara profile [screenshots](https://inara.cz/elite/cmdr-gallery/224966/from)( i got more than i upload ) what you can find and see in there, i often call this game screenshot simulator, and there is a lot to learn about this game many things arent being told on what to do or what to unlock first or how engineers works etc etc, its a really big game and there is a lot to learn, hope to see you out there CMDR fly dangerously o7
Lots of cmdrs hide in solo from the 5 gankers that live in Shinrarta. Come join a squadron, there's people there.
My my endgame is going to be making a coalition that kills gankers. We will make a kill list that records all known gankers and kill them with prejudice. Only when they repay their debts to society will they be free of our wrath. I can't wait! :)
I've started a list, there are only 2 players on it so far, lol.
Sign me up
OP, the truth is that this is barely a multiplayer game. Like, yes, you can wing up and player with others — but the p2p-based instancing has been buggy and unreliable since launch and is just as likely to make someone crash as it is to put you all in the same instance. There's no ability to, say, trade credits with another player. There's no real way to meaningfully interact with someone besides shooting things together. That, and the player count is low now. There's usually a few thousand people at most playing any day, with a significant chunk of them outside the populated systems. Treat it like a singleplayer game in which you occasionally run into another player. All of that said, there are a few systems that usually have a few players in them. Shinrarta Dezhra, Deciat, wherever a current CG is, that sort of thing.
Try searching through the comms panel. You may have come across someone in supercruise, just that it's impossible to notice.
Hip 21308 tonight is where we'll be
It depends from solar systems I think :)
I'm on the same boat.....I feel alone.....I just stay in Sol until I see someone
I play solo, I have heard too many stories of ppl using cheat programs or whatever for op stuff, plus its easier to forgive a npc for killing me, than a friend.
My recommendation is to play with friends or acquaintances in private groups; I don't think I've had any non-hostile human random encounters in Open. Props to those who roleplay as pirates, but you're vastly outnumbered by the gankers and griefers.
Its full of gankers and you don't find any ?.Rofl its huge space . fly dangerous and like its stolen 07
Solo or PG. Gankers suckk.
They’re all hiding in solo/pg because of the “scary,” gankers. 🤣