What are you doing (ingame) now?

[Schmobius]

Doing some shadow deliveries out of 17 Draconis. Lots of pirates and security services ships following you around, which lends some excitement.

It's a nice change of pace from my normal routine.

BTW, the donation missions are still plentiful on the BB at 17 Draconis if anyone is interested.

Just bought an Anaconda. Doubt I'll be doing much donating for a while.

[Hrdina]

I have to wonder if the "Order of the Smiling Moose" is another player faction. They are listed as the controlling faction of the Duamta system.

Either way, apparently I killed someone that they wanted dead.

[Vespyr]

Some of the faction names really are great. I stumbled upon a "Trans Galactic Slave Trade Corporation" today. Seems like they have no qualms about advertising their business!

Just bought an Anaconda. Doubt I'll be doing much donating for a while.

Congrats! I'm close to being able to afford one myself. I've been fast-tracking my way to riches by hopping on the Shadow Deliveries bandwagon like what all the cool kids are doing. Never thought I'd become a smuggler, but with the kind of pay those missions dole out... well, I couldn't resist. And it helps that they're a helluva lotta fun, too. I was on a roll until I got scanned on my last trip. I got caught on my way to a planetary base when a spacecop literally spawned right behind me the moment I exited orbital cruise. Total BS if you ask me. I couldn't boost away in time and deploying hardpoints didn't work either. Got fined and failed my last two missions. Thankfully, I'd already completed all the others and got a good 18m out of the trip, but the cheating NPC left a bad taste in my mouth. If he'd chased me through supercruise to the planet surface, I would have put up with it, but there were no NPCs behind me until I was about to land. Give me a break!

I then traded in my trusty Asp (temporarily) for a Python and I'm liking it a lot so far even though I'm running an economical trading build. I've found a relatively profitable route that may or may not involve more smuggling ... but while it's pretty good, I can't help remembering how much money I used to make from my Robigo runs... and I often have to fight the temptation to go back to my old ways. The dark side beckons with fresh baked cookies, and the temptation is real!

Btw, I currently have 171m in assets (though it's more like 150m as I probably will keep a Clipper I have in storage) and am wondering if this would be enough to buy and outfit a basic tradeconda with the LYR discount. I'm thinking I should save up to 200m to be safe in any case, though. At least smuggling the old fashioned way doesn't spawn quite as many NPCs as the missions do.

[Schmobius]

This will be a long one. Apologies in advance, but you all should be amused by the read.

Some of the faction names really are great. I stumbled upon a "Trans Galactic Slave Trade Corporation" today. Seems like they have no qualms about advertising their business!

Just bought an Anaconda. Doubt I'll be doing much donating for a while.

Congrats! I'm close to being able to afford one myself. I've been fast-tracking my way to riches by hopping on the Shadow Deliveries bandwagon like what all the cool kids are doing. Never thought I'd become a smuggler, but with the kind of pay those missions dole out... well, I couldn't resist. And it helps that they're a helluva lotta fun, too. I was on a roll until I got scanned on my last trip. I got caught on my way to a planetary base when a spacecop literally spawned right behind me the moment I exited orbital cruise. Total BS if you ask me. I couldn't boost away in time and deploying hardpoints didn't work either. Got fined and failed my last two missions. Thankfully, I'd already completed all the others and got a good 18m out of the trip, but the cheating NPC left a bad taste in my mouth. If he'd chased me through supercruise to the planet surface, I would have put up with it, but there were no NPCs behind me until I was about to land. Give me a break!

I was talking to my brother a bit today (who plays on Xbox One, which makes me upset that we still can't do cross-play between PC and Xbox, as he would make a hell of a wingman), and he let me know about some of those Shadow Deliveries in remote stations... I ended up docking my Anaconda in the middle of a trade loop to take my python out for trade/smuggling missions (glad I did, since outposts were involved), as he was telling me I could be earning twice as much an hour.

He wasn't exactly wrong, but it's never that easy.

I had to travel out about 522 ly to get to the feeding trough, only to find that there was decent money to be found, but not crazy money, because I wasn't allied with the faction yet. There were some 5 million credit missions in the "available but unobtainable" section, but I gotta start somewhere.

So I pick up a shadow delivery mission for 2 million to head out 364 light years. I'm getting interdicted in almost every system, sometimes twice! After adding a kill warrant scanner to my ships, that proved to be some nice supplemental income, on top of all the exploration data I was pulling in with my advanced discovery scanner (which I've found is almost required for surface delivery missions...)

Suddenly, I realize I haven't seen a scoopable star since something like 6 systems ago. I pray the next one is scoopable.

It is not.

Right before I decide to throw up the Ratsignal, I hit the FSD button, and it's spinning up instead of scolding me. Salvation!

As I jump into the next system, I'm left with what had to be only 1 pixel-width of fuel in my tank, and that star is also not scoopable... but after firing up the discovery scanner, I see that this one at least has civilization! Huzzah, or something!

No sooner do I head for an outpost, I'm interdicted. Fine, whatever. I make short work of him. Then interdicted again. Then interdicted again, the last two times, within like 4mm of the outpost, so of course I kept getting pushed back when I was pulled down.

I finally make it and refuel!

There's probably half a dozen more jumps for me to go, so I get moving. I get interdicted a few more times on the way, but deal with the rabble easily enough, happy to not be keeping one eye on my fuel gauge during the fight. Right as one of those fights ended, a system authority vessel decides to say hello, and announce he will scan me. I thought I was about to lose 2 million credits for being scanned, but manage to boost towards an FSD jump.

In the penultimate system on my ridiculous smuggling route, I get interdicted by an Anaconda. I run the KWS and proceed to attack, feeling pretty good about it, as I took one down without losing shields the other day. By about the time I had him on 50% hull, he suddenly seems to have the agility of an Eagle. Nothing I do seems to get him in front of my guns, and he's of course past my shields in short order.

I hear a cannon connect with my hull.

NOPE. Time to go. By this point, I'm at about 27%, and can see that this is not the time to stand my ground. 4 pips to engines, and much boosting later, I finally break the mass lock, and even outrun a missle (I didn't even know that was possible?) and get back to supercruise, and immediately try to jump to my destination system. As my FSD was spinning up for the jump, the anaconda says "You're mine now!", obviously about to interdict me again...

And I see the light start bending, looking more beautiful than a frameshift jump ever has before!

I finally limp into my target coriolis station, where I was pleased to see that even though my canopy was cracked, and I'm still at 27% hull, my engines are still at peak efficiency, so I put 4 pips to engines, and boost like a crazy person while maneuvering toward the mail slot (not a great starting angle, but at least I could see the correct side of the port), and keep it at full throttle heading in.

My parking jobs don't usually look as pretty as I've seen some of you guys post in youtube videos, but I was proud of this one. I came in so fast that even hitting landing gear as soon as I was in the mail slot and throttling to zero, I nearly hit the back wall, but since my pad was at the back, I slid in with hardly any course correction.

I needed a cigarette.

That was probably hands-down the most white-knuckled journey I've ever been on in this game. I'm still trying to decide if I loved it or hated it.

[robfm81]

Phew. Had a sweat on just reading that... hehe

[JohnLuke]

Just bought an Anaconda. Doubt I'll be doing much donating for a while.

Congrats! Whoot Whoot!!

And.... great smuggling story.... you pulled that one out by the skin of your teeth!

Btw, I currently have 171m in assets (though it's more like 150m as I probably will keep a Clipper I have in storage) and am wondering if this would be enough to buy and outfit a basic tradeconda with the LYR discount. I'm thinking I should save up to 200m to be safe in any case, though. At least smuggling the old fashioned way doesn't spawn quite as many NPCs as the missions do.

I think that you are just about there. I sold my battle conda to fund the Vette recently, but was looking at Coriolis tinkering with the idea of a trade conda. This is what I came up with. *note.... not actually flight tested*. I added all of the shield boosters due to the use of a 5A shield generator. The weapons are there because... well.... I never leave home without them. $180m A 7A power plant would provide more juice and is lighter, but it's also more money.

[charlie2alpha]

@JL,

I think this trader conda build is better for range and cargo space. Of course it's weaker in defense, but that's the usual trade off. Also it's cheap, about 157 mil credits with 15% discount calculated.

[JustSomeGuy]

I'm about to destroy the future of mankind

[Cmdr. Ancalagon]

Sitting around being bored, logging on and off hoping to find me Imperial Rep missions that do not exist.
Also check upon each log in the nearest H(az)RES for big ship spawns.
No luck so far.

[Vespyr]

@Schmobius: What a trip! Running into all those brown dwarves was bad enough but the interdiction spam was crazy! I'm glad you made it through despite all the trouble.

One way to shake off the cops is to use what I like to call the "sun shield" trick when jumping into a system. Approach the star as if you're going to scoop from it, get as close as you can to the drop-off zone with the star above you, then roll over and pitch up so that it's directly behind you. On your radar the star's icon should ideally cover your ship. Cut the throttle and wait for the NPCs to spawn, which they almost certainly will within seconds of entering a system. As they try to get behind you to interdict, they'll end up getting sucked into the star instead and will be forced to drop out. When I first read about this trick I was highly skeptical that it worked, but I gave it a try and I've since found that it's successful 9/10 times, so long as I make sure I'm as close to the star as possible. It also comes with the added benefit that you can fuel scoop (albeit slowly) while you wait for your pursuers to melt. Granted, this won't eliminate interdictions completely in the system you're in, as there's still a chance more pursuers will pawn en route to a station, and it may not be as effective with brown dwarfs, but when it does work, it should take care of the initial few NPCs that try to snag you on entry. It made my runs a little less nerve-racking, though there's always the chance something will go wrong, like when I found out one of my destination stations was a Military Outpost!

Thanks JohnLuke and charlie for the conda builds! Hope to be able to try them sometime today if I can make a few more millions.