Quick engineer question,
When moving from Grade 1 to Grade 5, Do you need to complete each grade or can you just move on once the next grade opens up?
This.
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Sweet. I wasn’t sure if you got a better “roll” or not.
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Did some tests but no- you can go trigger-happy on those rolls! 
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Out of idle curiosity…how many times does the average player die (get catapulted to the nearest space station to start over)? I’m not saying my current record is even near that of my Viggen record in DCS…well if you count the basic combat tutorial it is actually a bit higher…but training doesn’t count.
Second question…although I think I already know the answer…Is it better to stay with the Sidewinder for a while and then make a more significant upgrade when you have a lot more CRs? Last night I just had enough to upgrade to the Adder which I thought would be good since it has 3 hard points - so 2 x for wraps and a mining laser on top…except I didn’t have enough left over and even after a couple of commerce runs I was still without a rover…plus the interior color scheme for the Adder is light tone colors which reflect sunlight and make the displays hard to read…
Finally, what kind of time dilation does this game put out??!! I started around 7:00 PM last evening and the next time I looked at the clock it was 3:00 AM!!! 
Whisky Tango Foxtrot, Over!! They really need to put a health warning on this thing…now I know what the “Dangerous” part of their name is all about! 
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I’ll share some insight as soon as I’m home…
Let’s see…according to my current stats, I’ve died 15 times since I started playing. Maybe 5-6 times to overpowered gankers, all the rest to some kind of pilot error- forgetting to reactivate my shields when flying back from an exploration trip, a couple of crash landings on planets, a couple of times getting shot down by anti-ship weapons at planetary bases (back in the days of money for Skimmer kills), and maybe once or twice from NPC combat in either combat zones or resource extraction sites (RES).
You’ll get better at not dying the longer you fly, and especially as you start upgrading your ship. Speaking of which, to address your second question. Stick with the Sidey for a while, until you can afford a good bit of upgrades and figure out exactly what your playstyle is. And I’ll say this over and over again - never fly ANYTHING that you can’t afford the rebuy cost for. Ever. EVER. Also, take up @Gunnyhighway or one of the others on their offer of meeting you somewhere for free money and some starting information. If I wasn’t on the other side of the galaxy, I’d see about meeting you in-game this weekend for a void diamond drop, but I won’t be back in the bubble till likely June or July.
Hope this helps. Oh, and add all of us as friends in-game.
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I haven’t been killed by another player (yet). One tried to interdict me and I defeated it, another successfully interdicted me and I just ran away. I have died once to messing around with thargoids, crashed into a planet one time.
When I first started, I stuck to private mode, but only because I was afraid of rabid gankers. What I found on the public realm is that people hunting other players is pretty rare to run into.
I haven’t played since the tomcat came out, so if you need some help it will give me an excuse to fire it up!
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I struggled with combat in ED right from the start, dying a frustrating number of times. As a result I concentrated on developing trading and exploration for a long while. My combat got better as soon as I realised that there is no perfect ship that will defeat all others - I’ve seen a Sidewinder demolish an Anaconda at a nav beacon. It’s all about player skill, how you play to your ships strengths, and how the combat is initiated. I still regularly get my butt kicked in combat zones, but can hold my own in resource extraction sites.
Some basic combat advice:
- Manouverability is key - the best fight is one where you can stay behind your opponent so they can’t target you
- Initiate combat from a good position (behind / above)
- To begin with pick single targets rather than wings or combat zones
- There is no shame in boosting away if the fight is not going your way
- You can get a pretty good idea how hard your opponent will be by looking at their combat rating before initiating combat
- Watch out for those cheeky reverse turns that will put you in the line of fire before you realise what’s happening - particularly deadly if your opponent is in a federal combat ship (or similar)
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FWow…some great tips! I probably should have mentioned that I haven’t been shot down yet in real (non tutorial) play. So far, all my deaths were stupid things like flying into a brown dwarf…evidently the lack of a photosphere means no fuel scooping. I think I’ll retire my current pilot and start again with the Sidewinder…I like the simple missions and commodities …I’ve also picked up on tracking down signals that usually lead to a destroyed ship and scooping up valuable pieces. Think my new ship will be named Vulture I. So probably do that for a few days to build my skills and then, if you have some time @Gunnyhighway, learn more from a master.
The only two downsides to ED are its ravenous amount of time expenditures and that I can’t use my DCS MiG-19 
BTW, I was entering a station the other day and a big passenger ship flew into and got stuck in the “cage” right in front of the “letter slot”. Do you think an AI mishap or was that another player? I can’t my clearance until the whole thing was resolved so as not to incur a time penalty fine.
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The mnemonic for scoopable main-sequence stars is FOGKBAM
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I remember it as Oh Be a Good Girl And Kiss Me Fairly/fiercely/fearlessly!
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Most excellent @schurem! That I can remember.
Just like the color code for electronics resistors that I memorized in High School physics in 1979…
Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Goes Willingly…ok so perhaps not as PC…and I do seem to recall that it was not the teacher but another student that let us onto this little nemonic gem…but it works.
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I tend to use KGB FOAM to remember.
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Finally getting the hang of all this, thanks to all your pointers and suggestions.
I ran into something I really didn’t expect. I landed on a planet to practice landing and using the rover. As I took off again I saw something off in the distance. So I landed again and took out my rover for a closer look. It was a ship and the scan came back that the commander was wanted. The ship wasn’t taking any notice of me so I thought maybe it was a derelict. Not knowing what to do, I climbed into the turret an “lit it up”
It wasn’t derelict.
The shields flared and the thing took off. Then came in for some staffing runs. I floored it and ran around a bit until another couple of ships showed up and started shooting at it too. Then I slowed way down and re engaged with the turret. I got his shields down and the two other ships finished him off.
I drove over to a couple big pieces of wreckage but there was nothing salvageable. Still it was pretty exciting. Just goes to show how deep ED really is.
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Was it NPC or another player? I’ve come across wanted NPC ships before as well, but jumped back into my ship to shoot them down.
Also, have you started reading up yet on how to read the pulse wave scanner?
I think it was an NPC…talk about poking a snake with a stick! I also found a meteorite on the planet and “mined it” with the SSV’s pump lasers…
Question regarding thrust…I’m currently using a Cyborg dual throttle stick. The idea being that one axis is for the normal forward/backward throttle and the other is for the frame…errr…frame drive thingy …but then that throttle reverts to a regular throttle when out of the frame drive…so I have to “sync” it with the fwd/rev throttle when I pop out into normal space…is that normal?
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Pretty exciting encounter. Most likely it was an NPC and the other ships that showed up were system security. They will generally help you kill criminals. Just don’t shoot them on accident.
Use system sec to your advantage. I normally tag along with them near nav becons. Let them do most of the work and then finish the target off. Be ware though they can fly between you and the target. If you hit system sec they tend to get pissy. Oh and gimballed weapons need to be used very carefully.
As for you throttle issue, Im not sure what you are going for. I have always used one throttle. FSD was/is a button push for me.
I would recommend using just the one throttle for supercruise and sublight both, and like the others, I have a button set for activating the frame shift drive, and another for the hyperdrive.