No I think that it is all manual from what I have heard.
I think that this game would be interesting to try out.
You can buy a docking computer but from a lot of reports on the game forums it appears to have been programed by Marvin the paranoid android and has lost the will to live. It has a bad tendency to crash rather than land, usually destroying your ship and cargo in the process.
Despite being a backer I still haven’t installed it since my bad experience in Gamma. By installed I mean ‘update to the release version’. I 'm just not feeling it.
And then I found out today I have a herniated disc and so gaming is way off the table.
Bounty hunting’s easy when the marks don’t bother putting their shields up. One mook even ran a successful interdiction on me, which has been unusual ever since I bought my Cobra, but still didn’t put up shields!
I’m playing. Not sure exactly why yet. Mainly been an explorer, and I pick up whatever courier missions I can find. It’s kinda fun, beautiful, and kinda boring. I’ll move into some combat once I get bored exploring.
You assigned your discovery scanner to a fire group, right?
I have a standard rares trading run that I do which is four systems (imagine a classic kite shape with my ‘home base’ at the long end and three other rare points at the peak and two arms). Prior to 1.1 I could fly the whole route three or four times without being interdicted by a NPC. Last night I flew the first leg (12 jumps) and was interdicted three times. First was a Cobra, 2nd was a Python and last was a nub in a Sidewinder. Made it feel a lot more like the classic Elite where you had to fight your way to stations. All used shields and the Python gave me a fight, knocking out my shields and doing some hull damage before I got him - I run gimballed pulse lasers on my Cobras medium hardpoints and gimballed cannon in the small. Once the bad guys shields are down damaging ship components is easy.
Recently bought a wake scanner and an interdictor so I could chase down marks who run. Didn’t have the interdictor yet when I bought the wake scanner so I was able to follow my mark to another system, where I tried to continue following in supercruise. Got interdicted by a damn cop!
Haven’t seen that yet. I always target the enemy ships FSD subsystem so they can’t run :D.
Yes. It’s my left mouse button.
Woot! 33K bounty in a single kill!
Nice 
I started exploring last week, stripped down the Cobra and headed out towards the California Nebula on a ‘shake down’ cruise, past the Perseus Dark Region and the a little towards the North American Nebula before heading home. About a 2000 Ly trip, netted just under $1mil credits and scored 60 or 70 first discovery tickets (CMDR Seaton if you’re out that way).
After that I removed the pair of lasers I was carrying and the cargo bay giving me a 26ly jump range. Yesterday I departed on my second exploration mission headed for the Cave Nebula (3000Ly away) and if my ship (the “Gom Jabbar”) is still ok I’ll keep going, heading for the Heart and Soul nebula’s (another 4000Ly past the Cave Nebula)
How long did that take?
Hard to say, I spent a few nights just exploring, I drop into a new system, scan the local star/refuel and scan the system. If there is some interesting stuff - other stars, lots of gas giants or water worlds suitable for terraforming showing in the system map I’ll stay and do detail scans of those.
If the system has already been discovered or it’s all just small rocky planets I’ll move on.
Sometimes I’ll spend 20 minutes in the game, scan one or two systems and then log off. Adding it all together…maybe 12 - 15 hours of game-time?
Cool, I didn’t think the exploration would add up to much, but it appears I am wrong. Haven’t logged on for a couple of months so need to update and get back at it.
You need a discovery scanner and a detailed surface scanner to get the most out of exploring.
Couple nights ago, I dropped the pair of 4-space cargo racks in favor of an intermediate discovery scanner & detailed surface scanner and started some rares runs, exploring as I go.
You won’t get rich exploring - I have a standard rare’s run that will net me 600k in a circuit so I could be making more in an hour of rares trading than I could in a week of exploring.
There is an undeniable thrill when you drop into an unexplored system to find binary stars with a dozen gas giants, a water world suitable for terraforming or even an earth-like world.
I’m exploring to offset the fuel costs during my rares runs. Had been filling out my cargo racks with the help of Thrudds tools but have entered an area in which they have virtually no station data. So I’ve been adding stations and commodity data there as well.
USS (Unidentified Signal Source) encounters are becoming more interesting. Dropped into one last night and nearly flew up the exhaust of a Type-9!
Then there are the kamikaze pirates. No idea if it’s a fluke or a deliberate tactic but I’ve encountered two of these recently. First one nearly took both of us out! Destroyed himself and knocked me below 20%. Second one was right after dropping into a USS; took out my shields and 32% of my hull. Easily won anyway, me and about three cops against a Sidewinder and a basic Cobra.
Recently got 22K out of a Python that interdicted me. Pretty much an even match there, both of us were below 33% when the local police showed up. I boosted the hell out of there and let the cops beat on him for awhile then went back in and opened up.
Am I missing something obvious in terms of trading?
How do I get information on the buy/sell prices for commodities in systems other than flying to them, docking, and pulling up the commodities screen? Do I really have to poke around a number of galaxies in order to find a profitable route, or is there an easier way?