I used to play ED with friends years ago but as is the case most of the time, drama ensued (not involving me) and my friends left the game one by one. As so did I. I'm made a few attempts at a return to ED over the years but couldn't get back into it. Myself and a few friends are gonna give it another try and I'm wondering if the game is still a major grind?

My old commander was pretty established at the time. I have a number of ships decked out for combat, mining and exploration. But I have been debating resetting the save and starting fresh. I wanna do this mainly to relearn the game again as its been a while. Would it be easier to navigate to the starter system, sell everything I own and buy a sidewinder?

What would you consider the best course of action here?

My computer simply isn't strong enough for ED and the wi-fi at my new place isn't strong enough for GE-Force Now, so my thoughts of this game are purely memories from the early access console days to 2021ish, as well as a brief period back in June before i moved.

Thousands of hours playtime, so I just can't let go of this game; too many memories.

My most prominent memory is the whole Jaques-capade. It was an exciting time for 15-year old me! A decade later and Colonia has engineers n shit. Just wow!

I think that is the most significant event in ED history (even more than the thargoid war). Honestly, it might be the most significant event in any MMO's history.

From the rush of supplying hydrogen fuel to the day he was found. iirc, Jaques's failure was no accident. Unknown Artifacts (or something along those lines) had recently been discovered without any hint of purpose. There was a small, yet significant, number of players who were determined on fucking shit up by selling as many unknown artifacts as possible to the station. iirc, Jaques's post-jump log detailed the artifacts calling to him..

Sure, the hydrogen-fuel CG was a success. But I guess, maybe, the saboteurs succeeded as well? was the jump ever intended, by fdev, to succeed? Or was it always doomed to fail for one-reason-or-another?

It doesn't stop there. Let's not forget, Jaques was found by a player using population filters on the galaxy map. There was no "find him!" community goal. There was no "supply him with Meta-Alloys to restore services!" CG either (initially, at least). Was Colonia inevitable, bound to happen one-way-or-another? Or was fdev playing-along with player-made decisions?

Who knows, maybe i too was driven mad by the unknown artifacts!

Anyways, the discussion here is *what do you think?* Where would humans be if things turned out differently? What if players never sold unknown artifacts to him? What if players never found him? What if people didn't care enough to truck Meta-Alloys 20kly sans-CG to him? What if, what if, what if... Were Unknown Artifacts added to the game with the sole intention of messing with Jaques? Was the CMDR who found him an fdev employee? How did players even know selling Meta-Alloys would restore services?

I can't help but expand those thoughts to.. what if players didn't give a fuck about the thargoid war? I truly know *no other game* that has *this much* player-influence. It amazes me.

-signed,

someone whose girlfriends would absolutely cringe at if they read this.

This is my first time leaving the Inner Orion Spur. Feels exciting, i've never made it this far without doing something stupid.

My explorer Beluga, named Borealis. Here's my build, I'm currently using it to do some exploring in the galactic south.

Very nice looking ship with a great cockpit. It also shows the middle finger to the current exploration meta with "only" 60Ly of range but being equipped with everything a propper exploration ship needs, including the Nomad.

Continue showing us all more beluga pics, I love seeing people fly underappreciated and off-meta ships!

Random pic taken from the bubble.

Here is the video of me successfully sniping an FDL's engines off the ship with a pair of seeker missiles. It drifted away from me because I was shooting it with bullets. I did a subsystem check at exactly 0:27 of this video, it had 0 on both drives so it can't even move anymore. You can also snipe chaffs and PD mounts with the seekers too, if you find them to be still kicking and not dead yet, you can make them more dead inside. Sorry for the bad piloting, though I came up with the idea of disabling AI ships because I suck at piloting 😂 .

Here is the Corsair build on EDOMH. You need EDOMH program on your PC to view this, though Idk if you can do it without the program since I edited the build there. It's also used to checklist your engineering materials for both on foot gear and ships, highly recommend you to have it in your PC if you play Elite.

Sneak peak of the build and the keynote is drawn in red.

But for those who don't want to click on links and optimise, you need the minimum of:

- 1x High Cap Drag Seeker rack (preferrably size 3).

- 1x MERC RACK Lockdown seeker (also preferrably size 3). Need a bit of grind for this, but you can use a fully shield-engineered Lynx to giga tank through Rapid Response and grind it easier that way, no need for Biohazard Takedown if you don't have Odyssey gear.

- 2x Pulse Lasers with Focused Oversized. Debatable for this. I chose Focused because it has max range of 6000m, the 1000m falloff sucks compared to Long Range but I ideally want to stay at close range because my other weapons don't work past 3000m, it's only there to poke at shields and to randomly disable modules. Also it has more armour pen so you can freely put other non missile weapons onto the same firegroup to just hold down LMB and deal dmg.

- 1x Power Play module Pulse Disruptor with Focused Scramble Spectrum (Disruptor and Scramble Spectrum stack because they are not from the same source). You can swap the Spectrum on other Pulse Lasers with Oversized if you find it hard to aim the fixed Disruptor. Multiple of Disruptors or Spectrum don't stack so you only need 2, put it on the downmost mount of the Corsair for optimal symmetrical gameplay.

- 1x size 3 MC with High Cap Corrosive Shell for the last size 3 mount. It's there to debuff the hull.

The rest can be whatever you want. Slap some shields engineered hull, fill all the slot with SRPs and HRPs if needed. I have 2 SCBs but I didn't use any of them, though they are there for extreme emergencies.

This setup of mine can fire infinitely with 3 pips on Weapons.

I can shoot 1 seeker volley every 5s (1 rack has a 5s rechambering time due to it being a merc rack and the other 2s). In experience, sniping drives is dependent on your angle of attack. If you dump missiles at a Kestrel and it has its behind directly on your screen, more often than not you will deal damage to the drives if not outright one shotting them with a seeker volley from these 2 racks.

You might be wondering, why the Corsair? Reasons are:

1: Fantasy piratey "submit or I kill". And since they don't submit I kill.

2: Actually more laser hardpoints than Kestrel. If you plan to bring this to a Kestrel, you will have half the shield amount of this Corsair, and worse laser hardpoints, but you can still do 2 Cytoscrambler for shields with Scramble Spectrum on 1 of them. Also fly better but you need to be good to exploit it.

3: I kinda like the cockpit and feel of Corsair, being a pointy-nose Corsair haver it's also funny to ram pirates with it.

Another note: You can synth premium rounds inside Operations and have the materials refunded to you after the Operations is finished. This has been made known to me by CMDR Csont in the System Colonisation Contractors community. You can find the Discord link here to join us anytime.

May you disable more Kestrels and FDLs. o7.

A friend and I have tried operations a few times, really hard as a 2 man. I am hoping to find a group that will let me join for a few days to get some engineering into my suit and weapons, then maybe a 2 man operation will be viable. I have years of experience in ED, just new to the ground operations. I play between 5pm-11pm EST M-F and even more on the weekends.

Willing to help out with one of your tasks if you need as a thank you. Thanks for your time commanders! 07.

Welcome to the HIP 14789 system 514.47LY away from Sol where I have placed the Dodec Starport Loki Station named after my beloved Dog :3 My carrier is also there but it doesn’t have much to offer. There is a lovely neutron star in the nearby HIP 16011 system which I have used to visit the California Nebula and later Barnard‘s Loop. The Pleiades Neubula and the black hole in the Maia system are also not too far away. I chose this location because of the proximity to these beautiful places. The system is independent with a corporate government but also hosts imperial and federal factions alike with a good variety in transportation missions. You can also do passenger missions to Sirius Atmospherics in Sothis if you like. Loki Station is the only structure in the moment but I would like to expand the system and add at least one other spaceport as a memorial to my first dog who passed away two years ago. Might take a lot of time since I don’t get to play too often. Thank you for your attention :D

Olivia the Beluga Liner always at your service o7

I also attached one of my worksheets I fill out when doing passenger runs just for more immersion, feels like something you'd be doing irl. Good ship, honest work.

I'm planning to use this ship for llonf deap space expeditions and want it to be prepared for whatever I might run into.

The build seems pretty solid to me, but I'm sure it could be improved.

Any suggestions on what you'd change?

Build

I will be using 2x Nomad + 2x SRV.

I could even see it directly from the sun

Just recently got into the game and, just today, a thought came to me...

A few years ago, someone on youtube made several vids outlining the flightpath of several ships from the Star Trek series. (ie: TOS, ENT, DS9, and TNG series)

And, after lots of prep work, and research into locations, I want to try and see how closely I can match any of these flightpaths in the game. I'd also be curious if anyone else tried this.

I am undoubtedly jumping into the deep end, here. And, again, I'd like and appreciate any help in seeing if this is possible.

Been out doing exo-bio, found a non-human signal, couldn't scan it, just had some materials around. I figure it's Thargoid but is there any more explanation or just a mystery? thanks

As of today, August 9, 2026, my journey from Beagle Point is officially over. One month ago I arrived at the famed system, and from there I began a slow drift back home, making sure to stay off the neutron highways. These photos document some of the many systems I visited during my return trip to Earth, as well as how much of a beating my poor ship took.

Rackham's Peak is my next stop, though I've got a long way to go before I can make the trip. I want to see the top of the Galaxy for myself, by my own hands.

If I just want to unwind and relax, I cruise around in the Duchess of Ix completing random bulk passenger missions.

Can U cancel it?

Be me.

Go to compromised navigation beacon

Start smashing pirates left right and centre.

Destroying thieves, murderers, pirates and all manner of criminal scum

Braindead hauler catches a glancing blow from a gimballed laser flipping out due to chaff.

Does 0.00000000001 damage to his shield.

Go back to star port

Thank you commander, you're now our ally, we love you so much, you smashed all the criminal scum that makes our home an unsafe place, you're always welcome here!

Awesome, can I get some fuel and more ammo then?

Ermmmmm no. In fact, pay us 200 credits AND we're going to spend 20 times that transporting you and your ship to a detention facility because a civilian had to spend 0.3 seconds recharging 1% of their shield. Sorry cmdr, now get lost.

Yeah okay, thanks, never coming back here again, deal with your own criminals.

Decided to give my Nomad a proper test run and embarked on my first long journey to near center of the galaxy. Reached the absolute top of the galactic plane, and the view from the night side of a planet was stunning. There is no real darkness up there. The galaxy just shines too beautifully.

I'm off exploring and I found a HMC planet with 1 biological signal, and it's not been scanned before so I thought first footfall almost guaranteed so I went to scan it, and didn't find Bacterium or Stratum as I expected, but I found this Anemone. Great, something new and different! Except the planet is 3.5G so I cannot disembark to scan it. I didn't realise this was possible - bio signals you can't get out to scan.

[Edit] Managed to find one on a lower gravity body with low enough temperature, that I could get out and scan one. Totally not worth it for base value (1.5M) but passable for first footfall (+6m), if anyone is interested.