New CMDR's Guide Getting Started

Five minutes of setup saves you hours of frustration. Pick a safe game mode, run the training scenarios, and bind the controls you will use every minute.

Choose your game mode

You pick a mode at login, and you can switch any time. All three share one galaxy and one persistent save — progress counts identically wherever you play.

Run the training scenarios

From the main menu, work through Basic Flight, Docking, Travel and Combat before you touch your real save. They teach every control in a consequence-free sandbox — no rebuy, no lost cargo.

Where you start

New commanders begin in the Pilots' Federation District, a protected starter region (start systems include LHS 3447 / Trevithick Dock, Asellus Primus and Dromi) with reduced PvP exposure, meant to onboard you over roughly your first hours in the game.

Bind your controls early

HOTAS is pleasant but mouse-and-keyboard is fully viable. Whatever you fly with, set custom binds for the actions you reach for constantly before you rely on them in the wild.

Three travel modes, one set of controls. Master the normal-space sweet spot, then supercruise, then the jump to the next star.

Normal space

Your axes are pitch, roll, yaw, lateral / vertical thrust and throttle. The throttle has a blue "sweet spot" zone — sit your throttle inside it for the tightest turn rate. Flight Assist is on by default and dampens your movement; leave it ON as a beginner. FA-off is an advanced skill, not a starting requirement. Boost gives a burst of speed for escaping trouble — never boost inside a station.

Supercruise — travel within a system

Supercruise is in-system faster-than-light travel. Approaching a target, throttle to roughly 75% and watch the "7 seconds to target" readout — drop too fast or too slow and you overshoot, the single most common new-player frustration.

Hyperspace — jump between systems

The Frame Shift Drive (FSD) jumps you star-to-star. Plot a route in the Galaxy Map, target the next system, charge, jump. Many jumps drop you facing a star — throttle down on arrival to stay clear of its exclusion zone.

Stations are safe zones with rules. Request a pad, keep your speed down, match the hologram, and put the gear down.

1. Request docking

   Within about 7.5 km of the station, open the Contacts panel and request docking. You are assigned a numbered landing pad.

2. Slow down inside the slot

   Keep approach speed under ~100 m/s through the mail slot and inside the no-fire zone. The station opens fire if you loiter, speed, or scan it hostile.

3. Match and descend

   Line up with the pad's hologram orientation, deploy landing gear (default L), and settle onto the pad. Auto-dock works but can fail — learn the manual approach first.

Everything in Elite is a variation on one loop. Learn it once and every activity reads the same.

Two interfaces carry it. The Galaxy Map plots interstellar routes and reads trade and economy data; the System Map finds stations, bodies and signal sources once you arrive. The Mission Board at every station is your main early income and reputation engine — data courier and delivery jobs are the safest first work, paying roughly 10k–50k CR each.

How ranks work

Ranks run on six independent tracks certified by the Pilots Federation — Combat, Trade, Exploration, plus Mercenary, Exobiologist and CQC. Each is a nine-step ladder.

Combat rank grows by killing higher-ranked enemies; Trade and Exploration rank up by credits generated in that activity (Trade Elite alone takes on the order of a billion credits of profit).

Superpower ranks — Federation, Empire, Alliance — are a separate system that unlocks permit-locked ships; that ladder is its own guide, Superpower Rank.

You don't have to commit forever — but pick a single focus for your first millions. Each track below links the activity guide (how to fly it) and the by-role ship ladder (what to fly).

The fastest early money is unglamorous: stack same-destination missions and run them in one trip. Bank a rebuy buffer before you spend on anything.

Realistic early targets: clear ~100,000 CR inside the starter system, then leave and grind your chosen career toward ~5–10M CR — enough for a real ship plus a rebuy buffer.

Don't rush a big ship. A cheap, well-outfitted small or medium beats an empty hull you can't afford to lose. Spend on the modules that matter for your role, not on hull size.

Recommended early hulls

Sensible first purchases by track. Prices are approximate purchase costs — confirm the live figure on INARA before you buy, prices shift with game updates.

Priority module upgrades

Elite is built to be played with a second screen. The in-game UI has no trade planner, no material checklist, no neutron router — community tools fill every gap. Four cover the new-pilot basics.

Underneath them, the local journal tools EDMC / EDDiscovery feed data to the whole ecosystem, and Canonn collects exobiology and mystery data. The full curated list, with what each tool does, is the Third-Party Apps directory.

Don't rush it. Engineering is how modules become dramatically better — more jump range, tougher hull, harder-hitting weapons — but it's a mid-game project, not a first-hour one. Settle into a ship and a few million credits first.

It works in three parts: unlock Engineers (each has an invite requirement and a location), gather materials (raw, manufactured and encoded — found in the world, never bought), then apply blueprints at grades 1–5. A common first target is FSD range (Felicity Farseer), but follow a proper unlock order rather than guessing your way through invites.

Horizon markers — the systems you grow into once the basics are second nature. One line each so you know they exist.

Ordered milestones. Work down the list and you leave the starter zone competent, solvent, and pointed at a goal.

1. Run all four training scenarios

   Basic Flight, Docking, Travel, Combat — before your real save.

2. Set your keybinds

   Gear, scoop, lights, target, route, honk, hardpoints.

3. Dock and undock manually

   At your start station, without taking damage.

4. Plot a multi-system FSD route

   Use the Galaxy Map; jump it end to end, throttling down on each arrival.

5. Finish 3–5 courier / delivery missions

   Clear roughly ~100,000 CR from stacked jobs.

6. Taste each track

   Kill one Wanted ship in a Low RES, run one trade loop, honk and map one system.

7. Fit a Detailed Surface Scanner

   Add a Fuel Scoop if exploring; practise scooping fuel from a star.

8. Bank a rebuy buffer

   Reach ~100,000 CR with the rebuy set aside, not spent.

9. Leave the starter zone

   Head for a mission-rich hub — Eravate, LHS 3447 or Diaguandri.

10. Buy your first career ship

    Cobra Mk III, Viper Mk III or Adder by track — keeping the rebuy covered.

11. Bookmark your tools

    INARA + Coriolis, and read your chosen track's activity guide here.

12. Stretch: start engineering

    Gather your first materials and pick a first Engineer to court.

The deaths and dead ends every new commander hits at least once. Read them now and skip the lesson.