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Elite Dangerous

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Elite Dangerous

Total Paid $43

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No question is stupid! Ask something you've always wanted to know about Elite!

Posted by Alex Sinclair in Elite Dangerous

In a game as complex and storied as Elite, there's no shame in not having all the answers. And yet sometimes, especially in less-than-welcoming online spaces, we can feel embarrassed to ask questions we think we should know the answer to. Not here! This is your shame-free space to not only get your questions answered but to win cash for doing so.

To enter, simply submit a question you want to know an answer to then have a look through some of the other questions asked by members and - if you know the answer - add a reply and help a fellow commander out!

Image credit: Frontier Developments and JHenckes, as seen in our Mandalay screenshot showcase.

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This reward closed to entries at 12:07pm on March 17, 2025 but you can still reply, react, and join the conversation below! If you’d like to enter other rewards which are still open, click here.

Created at 9:00am, 20th December, 2024. Page last updated at 5:41pm, 16th March, 2025.
Deadline at 12:00am, 17th March, 2025.

JHenckes 3/16/2025, 5:41:26 PM

What are the most efficient ways to hunt other players without relying on ganks? I usually have a hard time finding PVP battles in the game, especially when I'm looking to hunt wanted players.

Gadnok 3/15/2025, 5:41:51 AM

Where are my pants? Where's my suit, and where are my pants?!

Caenyx 3/3/2025, 11:23:59 AM

Will we ever get a new free ship bundled with the free conda at Hutton Orbital?

Ahnsyaraa 3/3/2025, 6:42:39 AM

If the Thargoids were able to communicate with humans through music, which genre do you think they would most likely use, and how could that affect diplomacy in Elite Dangerous?

ThePunisher99 2/27/2025, 10:41:32 PM

Why does the some space ports have the shape of 6 side dice ?

Delirious_m3ch 2/27/2025, 5:11:11 AM

Where will the new titans come to make berth?

LeeeroyJenkins 2/23/2025, 4:35:44 AM

Will we ever get to walk around in our ships?

mypets 2/21/2025, 7:07:12 PM

What do the aliens in the game look like? I know there are descriptions and even leaked files, but nothing official really, it would be fantastic to see a sculpture of a Guardian or even fight on the surface with a Thargoid

yan57436 2/20/2025, 3:23:10 PM

One curiosity I have is to be able to measure how long it would take to cross the galaxy at the maximum speed of the 2001c supercruise, since it already takes forever just to reach Hutton Orbital so to cross the galaxy must be a number beyond human comprehension.

Doc 2/18/2025, 1:23:02 AM

I am really curious about this. Is this scientifically accurate? A neutron star so close to another star without exploding or something else? Well, I really don't know.

CMDR Henckes 2/12/2025, 5:17:57 PM

What is inside a gas giant, should the game simulate the first layer of a gas giant and give us the experience of flying though infinite clouds?

TheAnnouncer 2/8/2025, 10:42:08 PM

What made the game go with a 1:1 scale, this is what got me into the game and watching Dr Kay Ross videos were interesting

Alex SinclairMod2/10/2025, 11:15:27 AM

TheAnnouncer

I think CMDR Henckes answer in our Elite Dangerous players article, goes some way to answering this:

“You could ask ‘couldn’t the gameplay be faster?’ The answer is: ‘Yes, if the devs wanted it that way, the game would be completely different’. But what’s the point in a 400-billion-star-filled Milky Way if you could cross it in minutes? When you play Elite Dangerous, you feel how distant planets are to one another, you feel the vastness of the galaxy even while travelling 100 times the speed of light. And all this is important; it makes you feel immersed in a real galaxy. Sometimes we Elite players are in another life, living amazing adventures we build in our own vast universe.”

https://justabout.com/elite-dangerous/38546/we-asked-30-pro-elite-dangerous-players-what-non-players-just-don-t-understand

CMDR Henckes 2/20/2025, 3:17:52 PM

Alex Sinclair

the aspect that made me fell in love with the game!

ayebawl 2/8/2025, 8:19:05 AM

Do you think we will see a version of Trumbles in the game?

Sbeve 2/7/2025, 1:57:29 PM

What would really happen if i let my ship cruise for a year from one planet to another, would it really get there?

Alec_Turner 2/13/2025, 3:39:15 PM

Sbeve

If I understand the question, if you were to fly your ship in normal space away from one planet in a given system towards another in the same system then yes, assuming you didn't run out of fuel, you would get to that other planet. I even know of a couple of occasions where people have managed to get their SRV going so fast that they bounced off one planet and then drifted across the intervening space to hit another. Your current stellar system exists as an entire physical reality in the game.

The only thing that won't work is between systems. Although the game won't stop you flying in supercruise for example from one system in the direction of another, even if you travel the requisite distance, you won't encounter the stars or planets of that other system because the hyperspace jump which takes us between systems is actually a kind of loading screen where the game runs stellar forge and does some BGS database lookups in order to generate the next system. Without the jump this won't happen.

Aerospatiale341 2/3/2025, 5:30:50 PM

What inspired Falcon DeLacey ships to be named after snakes? Is there going to be a archeology or salvage push with regards to thargoids.

SergeantRogers 2/2/2025, 10:47:44 PM

What the hell is Raxxla? Is it a person? A god? A group of people? Everything I've heard about it is so vague.

lebiadkin 2/2/2025, 6:49:36 PM

How many years would take one player, playing 8 hours every day from Monday to Sunday, to cover all the map with his ship?

CMDR James Lauer 1/31/2025, 9:05:45 PM

Now that the Second Thargoid War has finished, will we ever find another alien species in the galaxy. Or they find us? There are still billions of systems to be explored...

USCSS 12/30/2024, 8:58:35 PM

Does Raxxla exist?

If so, will we find it?

Hunter 12/29/2024, 6:27:55 PM

What do you think the reason behind the extinction of the Guardians ?

Kethervir 12/29/2024, 12:18:19 AM

there is a way to change the livery for a spacestation? for exemple, im with Zemina Torval, and in her main sistem (Synteini) i was aspected to found a space station of the empire.. and then Lagerkvist Gateaway is Indipendent. there is a way to conquest or change the livery of the faction of the spaceship?

LiquidMorkite 12/28/2024, 3:50:19 PM

I want to write something on the galaxy heat map, is there any tool that helps?

CMDR James Lauer 1/31/2025, 9:13:43 PM

LiquidMorkite

Have you tried using EDSM 3D map where you can see the trajectories you already made? Maybe you could use it to visualize some systems, draw the path... It's only going to be a lot of work plotting each jump individualy. I wish there was an easier way... Fly Safe!

Edit: My mistake, I rechecked and the map doesn't show adjacent stars... yeah, ploting everything in the in-game galaxy map would be a pain...

Odinoji 12/28/2024, 3:04:39 PM

So i have more than one question:

why do we have night vision in supercruise? Did the developers make a mistake or is there something to find if its on ?

Why fdev never mentioned if they removed dark wheel missions or juust changed their spawn rate?

If drew wagar said that to the writers it was forbidden to use raxxla and dark wheel topics as it was fdev only but then im reading "and here the wheel" and it mentions it ?

Where is the mayflower 97 ? Am i the only one still looking ? 🤔

T0Nejy 12/27/2024, 8:14:24 PM

Why frontier gave up on ship interiors?

Solaris104 12/26/2024, 9:28:40 AM

the game has a huge galaxy, it's been 10 years since the game came out and I wonder in these 10 years, how many systems have been discovered and how many remain to be discovered?

because I discovered one at random and received the First Discovered award

DunRingill 12/31/2024, 12:44:23 AM

Solaris104

February 2024: Around 250.000.000 galaxies have been discovered by players. This is 0.06% of all galaxies in game.

https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Galaxy

Alec_Turner 12/31/2024, 8:12:39 AM

Solaris104

I think at the last official count we'd discovered something like 0.06% so just another 15,000 years or so and we'll be mostly done! :-)

Rac 12/25/2024, 1:29:53 PM

Will it again, be possible to create player factions, before the colonization of systems starts?

St4r_Lord 12/24/2024, 8:44:29 PM

How is piracy fun, since there is no real illegal missons to kill somebody's ship? (I might be wrong)

LiquidMorkite 12/28/2024, 3:49:50 PM

St4r_Lord

It might be the thrill from being wanted (both ways, I feel that), escaping from both npc and human hunters, sneaking your way inside a station, etc. But it's purely roleplaying in my opinion, mechanic-wise it's not rewarding and not being able to access certain station might make things less convenience.

Loghen 12/22/2024, 7:04:53 PM

As a VR player - I know that VR is only some addition, not main purpose - I wonder if on-foot activity will ever be supported to VR? (right now it's like sitting in cinema on VR, with flat scren right before your eyes)

mastercesspit 12/22/2024, 10:31:53 AM

why does the "no valid collection" notification obscure the info panel instead of being top centre when you're collecting destroyed ship mats?

MrT 12/21/2024, 8:59:57 PM

This might be a good reward idea now I think of it. How do you get into fighting the Thargoids?

Osiliran 12/21/2024, 10:07:48 AM

Was the system Mingfu (currently permit locked) ever accessible and, if it was, how did one originally go about gaining access?

Stormseeker 12/20/2024, 11:21:39 PM

Are you going to review the fleet carrier sometime? Like some more useful features.

LCU No Fool Like One 12/20/2024, 9:31:04 PM

I'd really love to know how to get better performance out of the camera suite.

I can't seem to get smooth panning.

Osiliran 12/21/2024, 10:31:09 AM

LCU No Fool Like One

Hey LCU, I can't help with the suite generally, there's heaps I don't know about it. But I have been doing a lot with panning lately. What kind of panning are you trying to do? straight line panning, time lapses, ship focused etc?

Vivisector 12/20/2024, 5:51:41 PM

I don't understand all the infos on the EDdiscovery launcher. Is it helpful for the game?

Eskimo1313 12/21/2024, 4:06:16 AM

Vivisector

I only use it to upload data to the various websites and to keep track of how much money for exobiology I currently have to turn in

ScreamingRaven 12/20/2024, 4:28:43 PM

Will ever be the FPS part of Elite Dangerous fixed ?

SergeantRogers 2/2/2025, 10:44:02 PM

ScreamingRaven

No 😂

XCezor 12/20/2024, 12:57:26 PM

Can the new Mandalay with SCO FSD travel further using FSD boost or with casual Supercruise? Because if with the same amount of fuel SCO can make Mandalay go much further, maybe it's a candidate ship for a new record in travelling as far as possible beyond the dark edge?

Mandalay is made for SCO and it has greatly reduced fuel usage so I think it could be worth to check for record breakers.

Osiliran 12/21/2024, 9:37:52 AM

XCezor

Hey XCezor, just making sure I understand the question. Are you asking can the mandalay cover a greater distance in the same system by using SCO or just by supercruising naturally?

XCezor 12/23/2024, 5:06:12 PM

Osiliran

Hi, yes that's exactly what I mean

Osiliran 12/24/2024, 10:51:37 AM

XCezor

Ok got you, thanks. So, if time isn't a factor, then we'll look at the most fuel efficient SCO module which is a SCO FSD B, throttled down to 0%. For regular supercruise, let's just assume a standard fuel rate of 1.50 tons per hour, which I feel will capture most exploration or general purpose builds. Both situations will assume a full standard tank of fuel at 32 tons.

Results:

SCO FSD B at 0% throttle achieves a total distance of 2,296,331 L/s, taking approx. 12 mins 17 seconds, ignoring acceleration time.
Regular supercruise at 100% throttle, assuming a max speed of 2,001 C and a 1.50 tons per hour fuel rate, achieves a total distance of 153,676,800 L/s, taking approx. 1,280 mins or 21 hours 20 mins, ignoring acceleration time.

To answer your question if you have all the time you need, regular supercruise will win out. Switching to a another SCO FSD may be quicker but will burn fuel faster and cover less distance than the B rating.

Source:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j_bM0pqmtVRLWmSj3EfPW2sH93BhwCAyW_sEn9BaNL4/edit?gid=1844730608#gid=1844730608

XCezor 12/24/2024, 11:59:04 AM

Osiliran

Thank you 😁

CelestialFlea 12/20/2024, 12:42:27 PM

As a veteran player I have fond memories of the gold rushes of old, stacking dozens of skimmer missions or spending hours mining exclusively void opals. But those days of chasing gold rushes have come and gone with economy balancing and mission changes.

But as a returning player, what's currently the fastest way of making significant amounts of credits these days with minimal thought and effort?

Eskimo1313 12/21/2024, 4:03:09 AM

CelestialFlea

Probably exobiology which there is a bounty about and people give lots of advice about it there

CelestialFlea 12/21/2024, 2:12:48 PM

Eskimo1313

Is Odyssey needed for that one? I've not been impressed enough by it to pick it up.

Odinoji 12/28/2024, 6:13:29 PM

CelestialFlea

unfortunately yes commander. But if you are like me i have odi and im not a fan of exobiology. my go to method to make money has been trading, possibly in a wing of 4. you must go to expansion ports and get allied then you will see missions such as: "mine 650 bertrandite for 50 milion" kind of thing. Avoid bromelite because you cannot buy it, go for bertrandite, gold, silver. use inara to find them as cheap and close as possible. you will make hundreds of millions per session, as i said even better with 3 friends because you can share the rewards with each other :) hope it helps o7

Stormseeker 1/31/2025, 9:01:05 AM

CelestialFlea

Shared missions or Thargoids are the best by far for credits.
The first one you have to do it which other players and... well the second one today is not as good as it was during the war, but is far better than exobiology.
Btw regular exploration if better than exo too. People doesn't's count the time they spent in exo, they just look at the reward... but it takes really a lot of time to make credit in exo.
The rest of the mechanics are just the same, exo included, play anything you like to do, and get paid millions.
Sorry for my bad English o7

CelestialFlea 1/31/2025, 11:47:37 AM

Stormseeker

It's the effort and thought that counts o7

MQC 12/20/2024, 12:36:53 PM

Is there a ‘quick’ way to know at what point a star takes me out of supercruise because I am too close to it?

Alec_Turner 12/20/2024, 3:19:47 PM

MQC

Yes. If you turn on orbit lines then you will see a circle drawn around the star (and all planetary bodies) which represents the exclusion zone. If you also turn on the "mouse widget" (even if you don't use mouse controls - it's somewhere in the control bindings settings) then the basic rule is, keep the dot in the center of your screen outside the circle and you will never crash ino an exclusion zone.

Block9 12/20/2024, 12:25:15 PM

I would like to know why black holes don't have that accretion disc?

Alec_Turner 12/20/2024, 3:29:03 PM

Block9

The simple answer is because Frontier haven't updated the game's black hole graphics to include that.

Y0EMINENCE 12/20/2024, 11:41:35 AM

https://twitter.com/realedcommunity/status/1870071808210469225

Details on official player factions…

Y0EMINENCE 12/21/2024, 1:05:12 AM

Y0EMINENCE

😂😅🤓🫡

Sturmer 12/20/2024, 11:28:28 AM

Is peaceful Exploration possible without a PVP intervention? If yes, then which ship and fittings are the best for Galaxy Sightseeing?

AndyRice 12/20/2024, 11:35:14 AM

Sturmer

Yeah since you can always choose solo mode. And if you’d like to play in open, when you leave the bubble, it’s almost impossible for you to meet another commanders in the space.

Currently I would recommend Mandalay, it’s the best exploration ship that I’ve ever used. But basically you can fly any ship you want, since one of the biggest part of exploration is taking beautiful screenshots, and flying the ship you like will definitely makes your picture more satisfying.

CelestialFlea 12/20/2024, 12:25:40 PM

Sturmer

It's highly unlikely you'll ever meet another player whilst out exploring past the bubble as long as you're not plotting silly routes in known pirate areas.

As for ships it really depends on your budget, if you want pure jump range and money isn't a worry, you can't go wrong with a trusty old Anaconda. But never EVER leave the bubble without the highest class of fuel scoop you can fit. Honestly the rest of the fittings are purely optional based on what you want to do.

If you're skint then a Mandalay or ASP Explorer would both be good choices. The ASP Explorer was my first exploration ship, so I have something of a soft spot for it. But I would recommend an engineered FSD to get the most out of it.

Sturmer 12/20/2024, 12:37:12 PM

CelestialFlea

Katia Sae Infinite Tour: Elite Edition :)

CelestialFlea 12/20/2024, 8:12:15 PM

Sturmer

I don't think even Katia could visit every system in Elite. Around the Milkyway in 80 days maybe?

CMDR I.N.K.V.I 12/20/2024, 11:09:45 AM

Greetings pilots

I've been wondering for a long time, where do all pilots live?

Because I have never found more than five :)

mastercesspit 12/20/2024, 11:17:02 AM

CMDR I.N.K.V.I

look on the most wanted board at any station, it'll tell you their last known location, :)

have fun 07

Kraken 12/20/2024, 9:50:13 AM

As aplayer who jumps in and out due to realworld commitments, is elite dangerous still a good game to play casually? One the you dont havr to religiously grind?

mastercesspit 12/20/2024, 11:15:15 AM

Kraken

if you just want to play casually, the grind is much easier now, same with on foot grind, but if you want to do powerplay they just increased it by 5x, but just to engineer ships and suits is pretty casual now.

have fun 07

Alec_Turner 12/20/2024, 3:27:08 PM

Kraken

Absolutely. There's a saying "the only grind is the one you make for yourself". I know it annoys a lot of people and is perhaps slightly glib, but it's also perfectly true. You don't NEED any engineering at all to play the game (with perhaps a few end game exceptions like Thargoid combat). Even then, it really is entirely possible to collect the materials required for some casual engineering through normal gameplay. It's only when people get fixated on a particular end goal (e.g. I must have grade 5 long range FSD engineering and am now going to devote all my time to getting that as fast as possible) that the game stops being a game and starts being a chore.

Doc 12/20/2024, 5:02:04 PM

Kraken

Yes, Elite Dangerous grind is easier than other space games. As a casual gamer too, I will not give names, but there are some other games that prioritize only group playing and heavy grinding, which is really bad if you have a busy life.

Marukosu 1/31/2025, 3:17:46 AM

Which is the best way to upgrade a ship or settings to buy a ship to exploration, mining and hunting?

NarratorID 1/31/2025, 9:19:38 AM

When they're gonna do collab with Guardian of the Galaxy ?

Alec_Turner 2/3/2025, 12:15:02 PM

NarratorID

Well ... with the right paintjob and ship kit I have to say the Mandalay has pretty strong Milano vibes so, there is that!

GoJapan 2/2/2025, 1:17:30 PM

I am approaching the game recently and I must admit that I find it difficult enough to understand, the commands are many as well as the activities and customizations, even if the game has a detailed tutorial. I haven't understood yet what Edcopilot is for.

Alec_Turner 2/3/2025, 12:10:38 PM

GoJapan

EDCoPilot is a 3rd party add-on (i.e. a utility written by one of the players) which, while non-essential, adds to the Elite player experience in a huge number of ways. You can read the full EDCoPilot feature list here: https://www.razzafrag.com/featurelist

As well as providing its own UI (which can be placed on separate screens and/or as a semi-opaque popup over the main game window) it also supports voice input (especially useful for VR players) and output (of both contextual information and background AI driven chat to make the galaxy seem a bit more alive).

H4RD455 2/7/2025, 9:15:43 PM

i always wanted to know where is Raxxla?

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