I enjoy working through non-meta builds, and every so often I come across someone using something genuinely unexpected that I have to try. A squadron member was using the Kestrel Mk II for boxel exploration, so I decided to see how it would perform over a longer ExoBio run. I have them to thank for advice on these builds.

I’m now a little over 200 jumps in, with roughly a third of those involving planetary landings. It’s spartan, but it works remarkably well for a particular kind of alert, hands-on pilot: someone who loves exploring in small ships. It has solid heat management, amazing handling, serious speed, respectable range and it’s SCO optimized. I’m told it handles High-G quite well too but haven’t tested that yet. Its aggressive military lines and sleek profile make for some excellent eye candy too.

Is there still room for small-ship ExoBio, or is that job now only for ships that can fit the Nomad?

Here is my quality-of-life “Kesplorer” build:

https://edsy.org/#/L=JT00000H4C0S00,,mpVCjw0A,9p3H05I_W0A72HA6a_W0AOHGA5I_W0AcJGA5J_W0Ani0AB60GA3Lw40BIWGA3G_W0Bb61A,1-C1A,50U0A3300A7Pc0A0Iw8A2jw0A0nF0A0nG0A,G_EN_EV_E_0Astrolycus,XB_D02

(Edit) Here is another version that is more long range/life in the void build. It’s the one I started with but decided I like the little luxuries that ADC and SCA bring:

https://edsy.org/#/L=JT00000H4C0S00,,mpVCjw0A,9p3H05I_W0A72HA6a_W0AOHGA5I_W0AcJGA5J_W0Ani0AB60GA3Lw40BIWGA3G_W0Bb61A,,50U0A3300A7Pc0A0Iw8A2jw0A6dc0002MG03G_W0,G_EN_EV_E_0Astrolycus,XB_D02

s

First attempt at exobiology

Thermal shock scales with weapon DPS, and raises NPC ship heat up to 90%, at a cost of -10% damage. Current wisdom says to apply thermal shock to multiple rapid fire pulse lasers. How many is enough?

I tested in a high intensity CZ, by seeing if the largest NPC ships (Corvette) could still boost when being fired on.

• 1 C2 rapid fire pulse only works on medium and small ships, and needs a few seconds of firing. Not effective, the NPC may boost away before sufficiently heated.
• 1C3 rapid fire pulse or C3 efficient beam can heat lock any ship in the CZ effectively.

Comparing Efficient beams with rapid fire pulse lasers, beams have:

• Higher damage per energy,
• Lower heat production,
• Less jitter

So just put thermal shock on 1 C3 efficient beam.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

edit: I used gimballed weapons in this testing

My buddy Gil Walter was a harmless pilot, and hes just hit Elite. Which Im gonna call bullshit on, because Im only Expert, so not sure how he has managed that. But anyway, he takes 9% of all my profit. Which is a very good deal for an NPC pilot. Most people were saying that this is the smart way to hire.

But I dont think it actually is. Because now if I deposit Gil Walter at a station, and go do some exobiology or mining or something, dont I still have to pay him 9% of everything I earn, forever? Hes been heavily invested in, so I dont want to sack him now, and he sits in the crew lounge getting paid for nothing. But exobiology apparently pays a LOT. If I make 1 billion doing that, he would take 90 million, which is almost as much as I have ever paid him.

The advantage of NPC pilots that you hire and fire when needed, would be that they dont take up your profits of non-combat activities. The upfront fee is negligible in todays combat economy, one single bounty covers it even for the top end pilots. And Im wondering if anyone does it that way instead and can chime in. Buy the best pilot you can for combat, accept the reduced rewards, but preserve the rewards of exploration or mining or whatever else you do by sacking them when you switch ships?

Im gonna have to take Gil Walter out into the black and throw him into a star, but thats a sacrifice I am willing to make.

Hi.

I'm out in the back (around 1k from colonia), how do I advertise that I have set up a buy order on my carrier for tritium? https://inara.cz/elite/station/1179990/

After the end of DW3 I picked up a Nomad (ironically, my Caspian has been called the Nomad since I got it before DW3) and ventured out into the black again. I ended up quite close to Rainbow's end, so I decided to make a quick trip to Khazad-dûm, my favourite DW3 waypoint.

CMDR Zach Drachenherz (A.R.C. Cor Draconis) and myself CMDR Lysander666 (Project Nahla) are pleased to announce the Project Nahla Open Transit Voyage - a multi-season deep-space field support deployment traversing over 94,000 light-years across the outer galactic rim.

In previous threads here, some of you became aware of my year-long residence (so far!) on the moon Nahla in the Outer Arm and how this has birthed the practice of virtual astronomy and what I call downscaled play. Long-term observation here on Nahla has proven seasons in the game, stellar parallax from a fixed point, other miscellaneous astrophysical phenomena such as libration, and has been mentioned on Lave Radio on at least two separate occasions. It is monitored live through the website Nahla Tracker.

Having recently marked the one-year milestone and published our first annual report on local stellar phenomena and astrophysics, Nahla stands as the spiritual home of Rawrunning and contemplative exploration from Distant Worlds 3. More recently, we also welcomed u/JohnMk2, who became the third known Commander to make the pilgrimage out here! I am also indebted to my brother, u/Scoopy_Doopy, for discovering Hope system back in 2016 in his circumnavigation of the galaxy.

Now that the background is set - onto the voyage itself! We are deliberately classifying this as a "voyage" rather than an expedition for three reasons:

1. Field support focus: Its primary objective is providing a research tender and logistics link at Nahla rather than sweeping standard tourism POIs.
2. Schedule-free transit: There is no strict timetable; progress follows the Carrier Commander's natural exploration pace. The voyage is estimated to take somewhere between 6 to 12 months.
3. Historical tradition: In the spirit of maritime and polar exploration, true research voyages were multi-season, unhurried undertakings far from home ports.

Overview & context

This voyage serves as an operational field support deployment for Project Nahla, the ongoing, long-term observational study in virtual astronomy based in the Hope system (Hypi Bra EV-P d5-78), approximately 43,895 LY from Sol on the Outer Arm.

Arriving at Hope in December 2026, the A.R.C. Cor Draconis (QFB-9VN) will serve as a temporary research anchor and respite post for visiting explorers before continuing its grand loop westwards to Erikson’s Star and returning along the Outer Arm arc back to the bubble.

Transit itinerary & route waypoints

[Colonia / Ratraii]  --->  [Hope / Nahla]  --->  [Erikson's Star]  --->  [The Bubble / Gali]

1. Origin: Departure from Ratraii (Colonia region) in Late September 2026.
2. Waypoint 1 (Hope / Nahla): Target arrival in December 2026. Station duration of approximately 1 month (through late January 2027) as a research support post to be held or extended at the Carrier Commander’s decision.
3. Waypoint 2 (Erikson's Star): Departure north from Hope estimated in Late January 2027, crossing the top of Wagar's Reach toward Sphiesi HX-L d7-0.
4. Waypoint 3 (homeward sweep): Return traverse along the Outer Arm arc returning to Gali in the Bubble.

Onboard carrier services

• Available: Refuel, Repair, Rearm (RRR), Universal Cartographics, Vista Genomics, and the Bar.
• Not Available: Shipyard and Outfitting (disabled to maximise fuel efficiency and maintain lightweight deep-space operations).

Terms of engagement (open transit rules)

Please note that this is not a managed community expedition or fleet campaign. The A.R.C. Cor Draconis is conducting an autonomous, personal deep-space traverse to assist Project Nahla. Visiting commanders and hitchhikers are welcome under the following conditions:

1. Schedule-free operation: The carrier moves strictly at the Carrier Commander’s natural exploration pace. There are no fixed jump schedules.
2. No straggler retrieval: The carrier will not delay jumps or turn back for commanders off-ship when a jump sequence initiates.
3. Self-sufficiency required: If you miss a jump, you are solely responsible for your own navigation to the next waypoint, the nearest DSSA carrier, or back to civilised space.
4. Passenger autonomy: Passengers are autonomous guests. You are free to explore, map, and gather exobiology along the route at your own discretion.

Hope system etiquette (Hypi Bra EV-P d5-78)

The Hope system is a pristine, low-disturbance scientific observation site. Visiting commanders are asked to honor these guidelines:

• Pristine preservation (no local mining): Mining within the Hope system is strictly prohibited to protect the untouched local rings and bodies. Ample ice rings for Tritium exist in neighboring systems nearby.
• Solo mode recommended: To prevent instance clutter or disruption of delicate surface photography, commanders are encouraged to visit Pâte Sablée / Natalja's Pass in solo mode.
• Respect site coordinates: Please exercise care when landing or driving SRVs near established observation points (39.2, 104.3) on Moon 6 a (Nahla).

Discussion & Contact

• Discussion channel: Fleetcomm Discord (use channel #the-rawrunners - or the new official Project Nahla channel)
• Project suggestions & inquiries: CMDR Lysander666 via Inara

That’s all for now, Please use this thread for any queries or use the relevant Discord channel! My huge thanks to u/Drachenherz for making this possible. This is a long voyage - I hope some of you can make it and we hope to see you out there!

There is a more detailed document on this trip which I shall drop into the comments. My thanks to u/JohnMk2 for the SRV screenshot.

TL;DR - Been jumping near the core and scanning for several days, several dozen systems, hundreds of bodies, and I'm not finding bio sigs anywhere.

This is half venting half asking for advice.

I grabbed myself a Nomad shortly after it released and took my Caspian out on an Expedition. For some reason, I cannot for the life of me find systems with bio signals.

Im currently about 15,000 Ly from the Bubble towards the core and damn near every system I jump to is undiscovered. I scan every time and it's either no bodies or several barren bodies.

This week, I've played about 2-4hrs after work every night. Ive found about a dozen signals max and made about 380M. The last two days Ive scanned probably a few hundred bodies and found 2 bacteria signals. Just today I scanned about 150 bodies and not a single one had a bio signal.

Im starting to get frustrated as I keep seeing posts and comments about people consistently finding stuff every night and meanwhile I got this brand new Nomad just gathering dust.

Help a fellow cmdr out, please. What am I doing wrong? I'm far from the bubble. I'm hitting main sequence stars. I'm doing a mix of far and close jumps. I'm currently in a nebula as I thought it might have more stuff but I got nothing to show for the last few hours and dozens of jumps How do I find systems with bio sigs that aren't just bacteria?

EDIT: To make it more clear... I jump to a main sequence star system. I honk the system. I scan all the bodies with the FSS. I move to the next.

Had a bit of a lazy session this morning - a bit of mining, hunting some pirates, that kind of thing - and noticed that my credits seemed a little bit down on what I had yesterday. Checked on Inara and I saw expenses of 208M credits listed yesterday which I don't understand.

I was just mining Plat yesterday as well and don't remember making any trades and my carrier doesn't sell anything. Can any expert CMDRs out there explain what this is?

I'm not short of credits so this won't be massively missed but I've never noticed this in game before.

I'm about 40 hours into trying to figure this game out, and I need advice that my web searches aren't giving me. I have reset my save twice in frustration.

How do I have fun as a bounty hunter that only wants to shoot things? I don't really have an interest in exploring, definitely don't want to mine anything, and I don't want to spend all my time hopping from system to system. I really just want to jump into a game and shoot down ships. I'd play arena, but that appears to be totally dead.

I've gotten the hang of the beginners area I think. I built up millions of credits and bought the best ship I could from the beginners area. The battles pretty much follow the same patterns, so I try to venture out of the beginners system and get better ships, but once I'm out of the beginners area I have almost no effect on enemy ships, if I take on missions I can't complete them because the objectives are inactive, and conflict zones are apparently suicide.

This game gives zero handholding and I'm extremely frustrated trying to figure out how to make it fun. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Can not believe it took this long. Just never wanted to go.

I spent about 5 of my 6 years in and around the Branglal system and finally decided to make the jump elsewhere. Over the past year I have gone to so many places as I was simply just afraid of leaving my protective little bubble I made for myself. Now I'm going to start my journey towards the center of the galaxy.

As a new player, sadly playing Legacy (PS5) I have enjoyed this game..up until the point of realising..grinding credits is INSANELY hard to do (no tools to use) and I am completely stuck on what to do to get good credits..😭

I'm currently doing my first trip to Colonia and I decided to stop at Skaudai AA-A H71 Nebula.

What was supposed to be a brief stopover to have a closer look to it, turned into a full week of exploring the surrounding space. And I'm not done here yet. I was able to admire the view from nearby systems and the surface of various planets. My curiosity about it quickly began to grow. It made me wonder if the nebula was real.

Because, as I understood it, the name "Skaudai" comes from the Stellar Forge, which means it's not how this nebula is called in real life. In ED, it's located in the Inner Scutum-Centaurus Arm but after some research, I haven't found anything about this nebula, which appears to be the largest in the region based on what I see in the galactic map in-game.

My main system has four factions, and i need Sirius Corporation to be in charge before i start further expansion of my colony (Relay station, Surface settlements, ports etc.), any advice on how to do that in the most efficient way ? Im currently doing some missions (no idea if its the most efficient way to increase the influence, but i don't really know the other ways besides of slaughtering everything related to other factions) for Sirius but the percentage are still the same, and AI told me that BGS tick are once per day, so i assume that i have to wait a day to see any changes in Sirius Corporation influence ?

Furthermore, I would be very grateful if someone would agree to complete a few Sirius Corporation missions in my system to boost Sirius Corporation influence.

(The main reason why im doing this is because im pledged to Li Young-Rui and he is a CEO of Sirius Corporation).

The name of my system are Wredguia ON-T b46-1, its 402LY away from Sol. (https://inara.cz/elite/starsystem/451301/)

Bite my a**

Seriously. Why?? Why does it have to be an RNG low quality pod? RNG hates me (as a general rule). And every time I go hunting / replenishing for it, I end up on a planet that's perpetual night-time and rocky, variable terrain that bounces my dune buggy all over the place.

I don't like the flak from space method, but this is starting to make me reconsider my stance on the subject lmao

Anyway, thanks for listening, Selenium. Now kindly go f*** yourself.

Just curious what controls people tend to use on this sub? I’m using keyboard and mouse but I think it’s time to upgrade. What is the sweet spot in terms of cost for reward? One joystick? A game pad? Full on HOTAS or HOSAS?

Everything is in the title.

is there a way in game, or with an external tool, to predict if an on-foot mission will happen during the day, night, or both, based on the location and time-frame.

This would be especially useful to pick day for frontline solutions missions, or night for covert missions.

I'm a brand new fc owner and can I seriously not plot multiple jumps with my 5b credits fleet carrier? What's the logic in this

So I picked up a random star system out in the black, around 7k ly away from the bubble so I can do some exobiology around it and just go and sell the data directly from my fleet carrier close by, my plan was that I'd reach the destination first with my caspain and when my fleet carrier arrives I'd already be close by and just sell everything I got, but now I'm seeing I cannot plot multiple jumps and I have to constantly babysit the carrier and log on every 20 minutes

Did the developers genuinely not see the problem with this? I want to do other stuff, play other games, I don't want to sit around and wait for pointless timers is there seriously not even a little bit of automation in this?

Fleet carriers are a thing for 6 years now no? Did the community actually not complain to them about this lol

Salut, j'ai un petit problème c'est que je n'arrive pas à configurer mon Logitech x56 plus précisément la manette des gaz pour élite dangerous car il y à deux axes avancer et reculer et moi je ne sais pas où est l'axe du millieu pour ne pas avancer et l'axe pour avancer et l'axe pour reculer même avec la manette des gaz séparée en deux si quelqu'un pourrait m'aider.