How to outfit your ship in Elite: Dangerous

So, you’ve finally got the hang of taking off and landing in a Sidewinder, and you’ve run a few data missions and earned some credits — time to upgrade that ship! Find a decent-sized station, and land, then select Station Services -> Outfitting. But first, a quick lesson in what to look for…

Module size and quality

Ship modules in Elite come in various sizes and quality ranges. Module sizes can be anything from 1 (smallest) to 7 (largest). Module quality goes from E (worst) to A (best):

• E: the default on your ship and generally terrible, improve this asap
• D: better than E, and also has less Mass than other modules. Can be very useful if you are building a ship for long-range travel, since the less Mass your ship has, the further it can travel in one jump.
• C: decent all-round quality if you’re on a budget
• B: relatively cheap and good quality, but lots of Mass. Do not use if you want long jump range.
• A: best quality at normal Mass

Weapons

Weapons also come in size and quality ranges, though these are slightly different than modules. Generally speaking, bigger weapons do more damage, and so do higher quality ones.

Weapon Sizes

1. Small
2. Medium
3. Large
4. Huge

Weapon quality can be anything from A (best) down to H (pretty bad). Weapons also come in three types:

1. Fixed
2. Gimballed
3. Turreted

Fixed weapons do most damage, but you have to be facing your target directly. Gimballed weapons do less damage, but track any target you select in front of you, which makes them hit more easily. Turreted weapons do least damage, but are completely computer controlled and can track any target anywhere around you. Some weapons come in all three varieties, but some (like Railguns for example) only come in Fixed form. If you aren’t very experienced in fighting in Elite, my recommendation is to stick with Gimballed weapons to start with, they have the best trade-off in damage and accuracy.

Note that when you get a bigger ship that can take Multi-Crew, turreted weapons can be fired by another player crew member acting as the Gunner.

Lasers

Ships come as standard with Fixed Pulse Lasers. If you’re a new player the first thing to do is replace them with Gimballed Pulse Lasers — they will do less damage when they hit, but they will hit a lot more often. Lasers also come in Burst and Beam varieties, but my advice is to stick with Pulse Lasers to start with. They do great damage to shields and don’t use up much power. Don’t switch to other lasers until you know what you are doing.

Multi-Cannons

This is your best secondary weapon. Multi-cannons do little damage to enemy shields, but will shred their hulls once the shields are gone. So use Lasers to take down their shields and then use MCs. Multi-Cannons also use almost no power, so very useful if you can’t afford a better Power Plant.

For best results mix Lasers and Multi-cannons in your loadout. Set your lasers to fire on Button 1 and your MCs to fire on Button 2 — you can do this in the Fire Groups section of the right-hand control panel in your ship.

Outfitting a Diamondback Scout

Outfitting

OK, now that’s clear, let go back to the Outfitting panel in Elite. This is where you will buy new gear. Note that not all stations have a complete selection of modules and weapons. The bigger and more advanced the station, the wider the selection of stuff they have for sale. Hi-Tech and Military stations usually have the best selections, but in the early days of play almost any large station should have what you need.

Your ship is divided into several sections:

• Hardpoints (weapons slots)
• Utility Points (for defensive weapons)
• Core Internals (things you must have, like a Power Plant and Thrusters)
• Optional Internals (custom stuff you’ll use to enable your ship to do specialised things, like carry cargo or passengers)
• Livery (cosmetic items like colours and decals)

First purchases

The first thing you’ll want to do if you’re in a stock Sidewinder is improve your weapons. The ship comes with Fixed Pulse Lasers, and you probably couldn’t hit the side of a barn door with those. So go to Hardpoints, select Hardpoint 1, which currently has a Fixed Pulse Laser installed, and buy a 1G Gimballed Pulse Laser instead. Sell your old Fixed Pulse Laser. Do the same with Hardpoint 2. If the station doesn’t have Gimballed Pulse Lasers for sale, find another station that does (most will have them). Don’t forget to set the new lasers to your Firegroup 1 so you can fire them! You do this by switching to the right-hand control panel when you have left Outfitting.

The next thing you will need is Chaff. This goes in a Utility slot, and is great for disrupting other ships weapons — it will screw up computer targeting systems and make it hard for gimballed or turreted weapons to hit you. Learn to use it any time you are being shot at, it will save your life.

Once that’s done, go to Core Internals and click on Power Distributor. This is the most important module in the ship, and it’s not expensive. Buy the best one you can afford, you will need it. Just remember to always leave enough money in your account to buy insurance (5% of the value of your ship)!

Improving the rest of your ship

Once you’ve got the basics above, it’s time to upgrade the rest of the ship. Generally speaking, the next things you want to do are to upgrade your Power Plant, Thrusters, and Frame Shift Drive. Go to Core Internals and get all of these up to at least D level. Later you’ll want to get all up to C level in turn, etc. but D will do to start with.

Note that for some bizarre reason new ships come with Cargo Racks that are one size smaller than the spaces they are in. So always replace your cargo racks with ones that are one size bigger. That will double your cargo carrying capacity immediately for almost no cost.

You’ll eventually want to improve your Shields too, but in my opinion it’s best to improve the other stuff first. You definitely will need to improve these sometime though, so don’t ignore them.

The Adder — a great little starter ship

Buying another ship

My advice is to stick with the Sidewinder until you have it fully kitted out with A-rated modules, and have a decent idea of what you are doing. Once that’s done, and you have at least 100k or so in the bank, time to shop for a new ship. Go to Station Services -> Shipyard.

What you will buy next really depends on what style of play you have:

• I just want to shoot things — buy an Eagle, Imperial Eagle or Viper Mk III. These are all fast, agile starter combat ships. They are also pretty fragile (especially the Eagle), and you will be getting shot at a lot so make sure to save plenty of money for insurance!
• I want to make money trading— buy a Hauler, fill it full of cargo racks, and look for trading missions in space stations. Time to go space trucking!
• I want to explore the galaxy — get a Diamondback Scout and put a big Frame Shift Drive in it.
• I want to try a little bit of everything — buy an Adder or a Cobra. The Cobra MkIII is a classic jack of all trades ship that’s easy to fly and can handle everything you can throw at it, so it’s a good one to aim for when starting out.

Note that each shipyard only has a small selection of ships, so you may have to shop around to find the one you want.

The classic Cobra MkIII

Have fun, and see you in the ‘verse!

CMDR Caimbeal