Postby Roger Wilco Jr » Fri Apr 10, 2015 10:22 pm
Use your basic discovery scanner. When you enter a system and you don't have any data on it, point yourself at the sun and select it and let the scanner do its thing. Then when you get close to a planet, do it again. As you scan things (select when close & wait) they will start to appear on your sensors and will start filling out the system map. When you get 20 light years away you can sell the data to Universal Cartographics. When you are first starting out, that can be a nice little bonus.
If you are going to be trading in the same area for a while, sell the basic discover scanner for more cargo capacity. Buy it back before heading out to greener pastures. Now that I've got the credits, I always put an advanced discovery scanner in all my ships so I can fully discover unknown systems as soon as I enter them.
As for the throttle, I prefer the full range throttle with a dead zone in the middle. Just push it forward to go forward, pull it back to go backwards (or minimum in SC), and center to stop.
If you use the debug camera in a station, make sure you center your throttle before launching or you may find yourself zipping toward the blast shield or a hanger.
To avoid crashes, keep to the side of the station entrance/exit with the green lights. The NPCs now follow the rules so you can even squeeze past a T9, but watch out for CMDRs that boost out wherever the eff they want (they've got shields - damn the noobs in their Sideys).
If you have a joystick and are finding it hard to have fine control, like when landing, and it seems like you can't stop moving, you may need to program in some dead zones in your controller setup.
If you want to make credits fast, always add/upgrade cargo racks when you can afford them, and also upgrade to larger cargo capacity ships asap. Don't save your old ships. Once the credits start rolling in, you can rebuy and store all the ships you want. Also, once you know how to fly, you can trade in your shields for more cargo capacity - just run from pirates and slow down entering stations ...
When entering stations, look at your nav compass. The white dot will point you toward your landing pad. This is useful for the close pads that you sometimes can't see if they are below you. When the dot is centered you should be pointing directly at the center of your landing pad.
When entering super cruise, I make it a mini game by throttling back after the countdown reaches zero. That way it feels like my moving the throttle engages the FSD (and no crashing into suns if you aren't paying attention, which I've done, but haven't died doing).
It's time to give this another go.