First time flyer's guide to CND

[Malacalypse]

After being asked on our soc forum about CND I wrote down some notes about whats what up there. Thought that I might as well share it with the rest of the community. First time I went up I looked around on the forum and couldn't find that much information about the practical parts of going up and down and what to think about in space as a first time flyer. So here you are:

Going up
The pilots that fly up to CND are found in Twin peaks, they usually have a line system and the next flight is usually called out in chat. The fare is 20-25 peds depending on how fast the pilot wants to fill up or if "non-line" pilots are taking all the customers.
Always pay the ticket when inside the ship, in the hangar. There is a pilot scam where the scammer wants payment up front outside the hanger, and then logs off. This is not how it works. The pilot will add you to his FL then he will add you to the spaceships FL, after doing that he will invite you onboard.
Payment is done onboard, note that there is no actual ticket, you just pay and then take a seat. Sitting down in one of the passenger seats is done by double clicking, then you hit the HUD, a little red button between your legs or on the armrest of the chair. If your hud is not activated on takeoff you will be "blasted" and die. Some people like to hang around outside the spaceship on arrival and get "blasted" instead of walking to the nearest tp.
The right sidegunner chair has been bugged for quite a while and can be really hard to sit down in, so if its your first flight chose another seat if possible.
Sometimes the ship will go to CP first to drop off passengers, the pilot usually informs you about this but it doesn't harm to double check before you get off, so you don't get a nasty chock walking into the first dome.

TP:s
The first place you will usually go is to the controlroom. Thats where all traders are and all terminals. Just outside the hangers you will find a TP. You don't have to collect TP:s on CND, you will have them all from start, including all the domes since TP is the only way to get to them.
In the controlroom you will also find pilots flying down. Auction is found main complex (north or south) and also by the televators in the appartment blocks along with some more crafting machines. But most of the action is in the domes of course. Every dome has two TP:s, one north and one south, the domes are each walled in so you can't wander off.
Other TP:s include discotheque (used after some events), hangars (for going back) and appartment blocks. The appartment blocks have terminals, auction and crafting machines.

Storage and equipment
CND has no storage so travelling light is essential. Due to greater gravitational pull your avatar is also a bit slower so if you get overweight you will be really slow. Leave anything that you really don't need for whatever your business is in space, like extra backup weapons, tools you won't be using like scanners or any resources you might be carrying around. TP-chips and ME may not weight so much but you won't be using them on CND so that can stay planetside also.
Frequent flyers can buy an appartment of course for storage (and to live in if you are into that), rent is 10 peds for 30 days and they usually cost around 800-1000 peds.
If you get overweight (or when rather) you will find traders at most times in the control room ready to lighten your burden. They usually buy at slightly to much lower rates than auction markup. Sometimes you can run into a crafter who is willing to pay closer to market price for certain ores and enmatters. But if you do mine a lot it can be a good idea to invest in an appartment (if you have the peds) and then haul all your ores/enmatters back down and sell them at normal prices for only 10 peds rent, remember the appartment can always be sold again.
Having a friend with an appartment can also help (if you really, really trust him with your resources) but he will need to be on CND and online when you are to take your stuff and put them in the appartment.

Mining
First off, the ground is more dense on the asteroid and your finders range is reduced to half. So you only need to move half the distance between bombs/probes than in planetside mining, when you find a claim it can be a good idea to check how long it takes to move out of finder range. Other than that the actual mining is the same. The outcome is totally different though. The find rate is drastically lower, don't be surprised to get "NRF" 50-100 bombs in a row or more, but when you do find something it will be a bigger find, sometimes much bigger than you are used to from planetside mining. If you were to track your records you would probably find that it is the same return more or less as planetside, at least in the very long run. In my opinion CND mining is all about going on until you hit a big find that will cover your losses. Of course you can get lucky and hit a tower on your first bomb, but the likelyhood is that you will lose steadily until you hit that hof.
You have to press on and hope that your PED's don't run out before you get even. In my opinion CND feels more random than planetside, you need perhaps 10 times the amount of drops to see your results normalize.
Skillgains seem more abundant on CND, due to any theory of choise. Rare ores and enmatters can be found but not much (at least not confirmed), using finders with greater ASD does not seem to be the choise on CND. Due to shorter range you will be dropping bombs/probes more often which gives you faster mining, you won't be running around extracting a II claim here and a III claim there, thus mining feels a bit more time-effective on CND.
As goes for amps, well its at your risk. An amped hit can be really big but you can burn through a whole amp without a single find. So again its up to your budget and how many amps you dare go through at a loss for that big hit. I have found big (around 1k peds) finds both with and without amps.
Make sure you know what you are doing before going through bigger amps, and be sure to know how much you can lose from it.
Below is a link to entropiadirectory with a list of which ores are found in which domes. In march NeverDie decided to cater for the miners, who seem to be more abundant and brought the density of mobs down in most domes, so you don't have to be a uberhunter to get around the domes (but it helps of course).
The effect of other miners is also hard to say, I know that I have been pulling up a 1k lyst hof in an area that I have mined thuroughly and another miner has hit 900 ped caldorite right next to me, so who knows? All I can say is after 50 something NRF in a row all kinds of theories take form.
If you get a claim right under a big mob you have two choises; find a helpful uber in the controlroom who is willing to take care of it for you or lure it away. To lure it just tag the mob with your best ranged rifle or agro it some other way and run it away from your claim. This can take a couple of revives before it is out of agro range from your claim.

Hunting
Lots of different mobs at mid-high maturities in most domes and a few unique mobs (daspletor and cornoanterion) in domes 16-20 all listed below. Loot is like mining loot but not quite so extreme, average normal loot is probably a bit lower than on planetside but the chance to global is perhaps a little higher. Uber hofs are not as frequent hunting on CND as they are mining it seems, probably due to activity in the domes. I have not tried hunting during an event on CND, perhaps the big globals are more frequent then. Most people I have met on CND seem to be more interested in mining and avoid the mobs, some even mine naked and just die if a mob agros.
The daspletor domes are special and you can meet some high level hunters there, mining near them while they are shooting a mob is seen as disrespectful due to lag and the shaking effect of bombs and probes. Pvp is activated in dome 16-20 so don't be surprised if you get hunted down for doing this.

Music
CND use its own streamed music channel, so if you have the music turned down normally its time to turn it up. During some events you will also hear live commentary from NeverDie himself.

Shopping
There are shops in the CND shopping area by the main complex that sell everything from amps to weapons to crafting resources and clothes. Traders in the control room usually sell amps at a few % higher markup than planetside. You can also find some decent stuff on auction, note that anything that has been put on auction on the planet will cost quite a bit to buy on CND and vice versa due to a transport fee. So if you put resources on auction when up on CND you will not have as big market as planetside. I usually find amps on auction at decent prices without extra transport fees (placed on auction on CND) when I am too lazy to go to the shops.

Budget
How much do you need to go up to CND? Well 45 ped (25 up, 20 down is normal) for the fare of course, and I would not go up without being able to drop at least 300 bombs/probes or more, going up and getting 100 NRF's in a row to go back down with is not fun. But if you feel lucky ("do ya punk?") you can sell your resources at lower markup and keep going until you go bust or hit it big (then buy the fatest amp and go bust or hit it bigger, etc.)
A reminder also that all of CND is taxed of course at 5.5% just in case you missed that fact.

Getting back
Pilots can be found in the control room as mentioned and its the same procedure as going up, note that it is easy to get lost around the hangers (if you are the slowest, richest miner) so have the pilot on PM or be in team, the pilot usually like to have their passengers in a team to be able to get hold of all the passengers when its time to go. Filling up can sometimes be slow going down for some reason (what goes up doesn't always come down it seems) so that why you see globals with team names like "flying down funky style", I have never checked loot distribution in a "passenger team" and have never heard of a scam like this but its an idea to check perhaps if you are out hunting while waiting for the ship to fill up.
Sometimes pilots offer to charter their ship to get down quicker, so you pay around 60 peds or so for you to get down instantly.

Personal note
I have been up to CND quite a few times now and already after my first visit I felt like it is a place for me, so investing in an appartment was not a hard choice to be able to do long mining runs to get the most out of my ticket up and down. Most mining trips I have done have been profitable, at least with ores but there is some risk involved. I haven't done much hunting except perhaps the odd 100 ped runs and of course defending my claims and have not looted anything exceptional from hunting on CND yet. Goes without saying that CND is mining for me and not so much hunting.

List of domes
all mob maturity and density settings found here
list of confirmed minerals found here

Official homepage
realityport - the official CND homepage found here

[Miller]

Good post, but just to add one thing;

When you've sat down in the seat and activated your HUD the "dashboard" disappears, so remember to press "V" to make it reappear again so you can still see any chat that goes by

[Trina Xenophage]

Good Work!! +rep for the effort. Wish I had something as informative when I first went up to get my 100+ nrf runs.
Maybe a tad more insite would have eased the hate and discontent about the trips there.

[byubi]

nice work, +rep

[ena]

Nice guide

As for the bugged right seat, I have heard passengers say that jump + sit at the same time helps.

Also drag out the button-bar before sitting (as done with mobs and players) and use this bar when seated.

Gl
Ena

[Ninacka]

great guide, +rep

[Pilot]

Hi Malacalypse,

I am not sure if you have done piloting before but u have done a great job describing the piloting part in 'Going up' section.

And please add the following in the do's and dont's section if possible

After activating the HUD people had problems while deactivating the HUD - They need to find the 'X' icon to the right bottom of the screen above the Help '?' icon. And to get up Control - Navigate - Stand/Stop .

People shouldn't logoff after activating the HUD as it will lock the seat for that particular avatar. And pilot has to break the team and logoff to get the seat to normal state.

Mylcat

[Kydde]

Awesome guide m8. +rep

I probably made the most common mistake that newbs do when they come up.. trying to use TP chip ^^
Doesn't work, don't need, put in storage.

Im not sure how the uber hunters do, or uber hunter-miners do. But when I mine I defend my claims and myself, I get loot that just is dumb weight, so it usually go into the TT. Wich is bad for the overall economy of the game, when iam down on planet I usually sell to crafters.
But then, I stay up here for months before coming down.

[shadowcatcher]

If I had had this guide before going to CND the first time, I would not have done any of the following :

Get off the ship and run wildly panicking around CP for five minutes while the pilot waited patiently for me to figure out my mistake.

Climb back into the spaceship to wait for my friend, assuming that the cockpit was the control room he was referring to.

Tried (quite seriously) to kill a Daspletor in Shogun with a H400L.

This is my "coming out" about these things, I will now deal with the shame of it all :-D

Thanks for this guide, it is seriously useful for idiots like me, + rep.

[garci]

nice guide

i did a guide like that 2 years ago ( was more a checklist ) but just for me, didn't had time to write it out for others
so +rep

Originally Posted by Malacalypse

Storage and equipment
CND has no storage so travelling light is essential. Due to greater gravitational pull your avatar is also a bit slower ...

don't forget to take some sweetstuff in case you find some fruits, you'll be able to keep them for your pets

Originally Posted by Malacalypse

Music
CND use its own streamed music channel, so if you have the music turned down normally its time to turn it up. During some events you will also hear live commentary from NeverDie himself.

and pink pussycat too

Originally Posted by Malacalypse

Getting back
Pilots can be found in the control room as mentioned and its the same procedure as going up, note that ...

you can also wait a "this server is not available" error message, then you'll go back on calypso for free