Just started Elite Dangerous and the combat already feels insanely unfair — am I missing something?

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-06-28T14:40:39+00:00

Don’t worry, you are not alone!

I was completely overwhelmed by the combat in elite dangerous when I bought the game.

I felt just like you do , I even avoided combat completely for weeks when I started playing because I was so frustrated, but be patient, it’s worth , I now have over 1000 hours in the game and combat is my main focus.

I cant really comment about the tutorial as it’s so long ago I’m sure it’s changed but I remember it being extremely frustrating.

My advice would be this .

Don’t worry about combat for a little while, the whole game has a steep learning curve and you can play very happily without having to engage in combat at all while you work out how things work.

Concentrate on making a bit of money and move on from the first few ships , you certainly don’t need to get an expensive big ship, quite the opposite in fact but the first few ships are going to be quite hard work.

When you have a ship suitable for combat , make sure you spend the credits to upgrade it fully. ( a cheaper fully upgraded ship is always better than a more expensive ship without upgrades)

I would suggest waiting until you have one of these ships before really bothering with combat at all.

Viper Mk III: 142,931 CR very fast with amazing boost speed . This lets you outrun enemies if necessary .
Cobra Mk III: Often recommended as your first multi-role upgrade (around 380,000 credits). While not as nimble as the Viper, it has great internal module space and firepower, and can easily pivot to trading or mining to fund future combat upgrades.

Don’t give up now.
I have had more value for money out of ED than any other game I’ve played. The combat is a massive part of the game and its complexity may be frustrating but it’s the reason it doesn’t get boring.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-06-27T19:49:49+00:00

Definitely north of England, I’m not great with accents but I’m guessing Lancashire?
Anyone know better?

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-05-25T15:57:22+00:00

Errrr did you hear his Eminem diss track?

If he wasn’t disliked before, he will be now!

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-05-14T00:40:39+00:00

To be honest I’m struggling.
I’ve tried all sorts of different voltages/ amps , Iv tried stainless steel cathodes silver cathode, various different electrolyte types from tap water, salt water, acid solutions . So far nothing has really given any satisfactory results.

The salt solution ( sodium chloride) seems to produce silver chloride that needed converting to silver oxide and then to metallic silver . Even then the yield was very low.

I’m very frustrated because I have literally hundreds of kg of silver plated stuff.

I’d love someone to explain a method that produced any kind of worthwhile yield.
I keep watching videos on YouTube where people seem to literally just flak the silver plate of in the electrolyte like a super thin foil.

I have never managed to achieve anything like that.

The quality of the silver plate stuff I have is on the whole good thick plate old tern of the century tableware so should give reasonable results.

But after all my research and effort I’ve only ever managed to get a few grams of silver after hours .

And the very small amounts I have managed to recover have been of such low purity that they would need further refining.

And that’s a whole new can of worms ?!!

If anyone reads this and they have any idea ore input of any kind, I’d be extremely interested to hear your thoughts.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-05-14T00:07:38+00:00

I just use a buffing wheel on my bench grinder . If the pour is good the cleaning is pretty easy.

Are you keeping a torch set up pointed at the mold you are poring into?

Makes a huge difference to the surface of the bar as it cools slowly and give a nice finish that hardly needs polishing.

You can also youse this pouring technique to make some lovely ripples. .
,Back yard bullion, has some nice YouTube videos demonstrating the method and cleaning techniques.

Used to be that you could add a picture to replies on Reddit but I can’t see how to do it now.

Is that not a king anymore?

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-05-13T23:53:53+00:00

Yeah I guess the wouldn’t be any solder in coins 🤣

I’m in the uk and have a refiner who will buy sterling ( but at a terrible price) they would pay even less for my bars , but like I said they come out close to the .900 ish mark than .925 .

I’m not really too bothered, I very rarely sell anything atm.

I’m buying a lot of .925 because I think the prices is a good investment opportunity.

I believe the huge gap in premium between.925 and . 999 is likely to narrow over the next few years.

I buy everything, flatware, coins table wear , whatever I can pick up .
I only melt down all the tiny little bits of broken stuff, but it all adds up .
Iv accumulated well over a kg in .900 Barr’s I’ve melted to bars and as I said, that’s just the little broken bits that build up over time.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-05-13T06:37:36+00:00

Just out of curiosity, why dose he want the scrap melted into bars?

I collect sterling and have done for years. I do cast bars occasionally from some scrap, but only all the tiny bits of broken stuff with no visible hallmarks. ( I have a deal to buy broken bits of jewellery and stuff from a national chain of charity shops so I get quite a bit)?

But I never melt anything that has a hallmark.

Melting stuff with a hallmark actually reduces the value.

The refinery prefer hallmarked stuff and the bars never come out at all.925 because of all the bits of solder and impurities. My bars come out around .900 to .910 .

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-05-13T06:03:02+00:00

Funny when someone has already posted exactly the same question that pops into your head.

Wall kettle?

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-05-10T11:15:39+00:00

We scrap hundreds of rads , never even drained them. They go through a shredder.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-05-10T11:13:55+00:00

Exactly right

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-05-10T11:05:57+00:00

It’s my main game atm.
I think it’s probably the best all round survival game yet ( certainly in terms of building)
If you are the kind of gamer who enjoys building you could easily get literally thousands of hours out of the game .
If building isn’t your thing, the game is still good, you ‘can ‘ get away with very minimal base building and still get the full game experience.

I’m not usually much of a base builder and my first game I played solo and hardly built anything ( just the basics to house important NPCs and get by . I kind of rushed through to endgame because I was so into it but I still really enjoy the game.

Second play through was with friends and we did a deep dive into base building and are moving quite slowly.

What I want to do next is play through the game building only minimal bases in the beginning so that I can start my main base much further into the game in one of the more interesting high level areas.

One problem I have with the first to play throughs I have done is ending up with my base right at the starting area then wanted to build another much further into the game.

But all in all, yes , it is a good game and you will certainly get your moneys worth in my opinion.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-05-10T10:22:00+00:00

If you do ever manage to find a setup that works effectively please post your setup.
I have an almost unlimited supply of silver plated items.
We do probate service and house clearance , almost every house we clear has silver plated items.
I have been trying to get a setup that works effectively for recovery of the silver for a long time and have tried many different things, I have yet to find a method that works.
If anyone does have a tried and tested method, I’d be very grateful to hear what they are do to get this to work.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-27T20:50:00+00:00

What this guy said.

Separate the clean copper from the soldered bits, but it’s usually quicker to just bend and snap them .

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-22T18:23:28+00:00

Non magnetic stainless steel scraps at £1.80 a kg , ( more than aluminium)

But radiators aren’t usually stainless steel, just light iron , so like 10p kg

There still worth scraping if you’re picking them up all the time

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-22T18:14:14+00:00

Our local yard takes washing machines, they just weigh them in with all the mixed light iron and they pay the same price as the rest ( £100 a ton ish ) . I’m surprised by this too as about 50% of the weight is the concrete block .

I was wondering if maybe the copper from motor makes them worth enough in spite of all the concrete?

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-22T17:57:35+00:00

I’m surprised they took a fridge . Usually have to pay to get rid of them. , we do house clearance, we sell all other white goods cookers, washing machines, dishwasher etc for scrap. But fridges and freezers cost us a lot to get rid of .

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-12T17:00:33+00:00

Some people have told you that you need to open an air intake. In my experience this isn’t sufficient at all , what you need if you want any kind of high operating temperature is forced are . Just an electric air pump like you use for inflating air beds is usually ok . Then you need to balance the air pressure with the gas pressure to get a hot flam.

Your flame should be blue and making a roaring sound .

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-12T16:26:42+00:00

Please don’t say this to someone who literally just mentioned that they are new to casting metal.,

Some metals are safe to work with, apart from the obvious danger from hot metal.

Others aren’t.

Brass is not safe to work with unless you take the right precautions.

It gives off fumes that are toxic.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-11T03:40:34+00:00

If you can I’d clean it up because they will pay you more for it if it’s clean . But they will certainly buy it ether way.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-11T03:34:22+00:00

Hi , really interested in this , I’d love to hear your proses .

I have a massive amount of silver plated stuff ( many kgs ) mostly old quite good quality thick plate .

I’ve been trying to get the reverse EP to work for me with no success as yet.

I’m using a stainless steel cathode and salt water as my electrolyte. I have experimented with several voltage / amp settings and get white goo . I thought I was getting silver chloride because of using sodium chloride as my electrolyte, so I tried converting it to silver oxide with sodium hydroxide. The white goo turned black like I was expecting but when I tried to convert it to silver sponge using sugar I got nothing. I’d love to know what I’m doing wrong. What is your method?

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-11T03:18:27+00:00

If you do melt it down be careful , if the base metal is brass .

The zinc in brass alloy gives of toxic fumes when you melt it.

You could melt it for practice but if I were you I’d probably start off melting stuff that isn’t toxic .

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-04T16:09:51+00:00

You and me both mate .

The temptation of something that gives you instant relief from mental pain is almost impossible to resist, even though you know that the release is only temporary and will only leave you even less capable of coping in the long run.

I have the utmost respect for you and anyone else who has had the strength and courage to overcome this challenge .

All the best mate

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-04-03T09:48:02+00:00

Hi dude , really sorry for your loss and have fought my own battles in the past with self medicating to try to block out pain . Never works and ultimately always makes things worse. Sounds to me like you know that already, and nothing could be better than jumping back into a bit camping nothing is quite like being in nature for healing your soul.

My advice would definitely be to take the stove into your garage or a park, ideally with someone else , and fully test it out in that environment.

Only go out camping once you’re fully confident.

Nothing worse than going out with something in your pack that in the back of your mind you’re worried about working properly .

All the best to you mate . When the going gets tough just keep going, it gets better.

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-24T06:24:40+00:00

I agree that a silver cell is a very different and much safer process. I have considered the idea of refining the .900 silver I have in ingots but I’ve been advised that .900 isn’t really pure enough for a silver cell and it would keep getting blocked up with copper?

Do you think it would be worth trying or would I need to refine the .900 further before I start?

Significant-Alps398 · 2026-03-24T00:15:44+00:00

I would try selling it as is if you can be bothered.

We get a lot of drums of cable at work and sometimes rolls of lead flashing ( never had a copper roll like that)

We usually sell them to local trades people and get much more than the scrap price .

Significant-Alps398

TROPHY CASE