Elite Dangerous Get Cobra in a Day Guide

Elite Dangerous Get Cobra in a Day Guide by Divzro

Thinking there would be a wipe I reset my account last week to see how long it would take to get back to a Cobra. I used the below method and was able to get back in the Cobra in about 7 hours of play. Not sure it’s the fastest, but it’s legit and gives you a lot of rep with two stations (You get rep at a station for selling a profit).

Edit: Hunters – In the comments people have posted alternative ways and I have included them at the bottom of the post.

1) You’re going to start off in a station with a Sidewinder and 100 credits, to get enough credits to start trading you’re going to want to go right to the Bulletin board. Pick up the highest paying Delivery Job and head out for your first site.

2) Establish your first trade route. There are two options for this, first you can use google to find a well-known trade route or you can keep accepting cargo jobs to you find two stations that meet the following Criteria.

a. Provides a good A-B trade option, Industrial to Mining stations are a good example. Here are a few of my Favorite: i. Agricultural (Coffee/Tea/Animal Meat) to Industry/Mining ii. Mining to Industry iii. Industry to Agra(Power plants)/Mining(Mining Equipment) b. The station should also have good access, they need to be with in one jump for your ship and less than 200ls from the Star. This is to allow you to leave the station, hyperjump to the new System and quickly get to the second station. c. You can increase your rep/earnings by spending a bit of time checking the bulletin board for any jobs to the station your delivering to each time. I would say about 1/3 time I get lucky. I am not sure if its worth the time but its breaks the pattern so its nice.

3) Keep Trading your Metal/Food/Equipment until you have enough for your first Hauler, if you have an eagle you can just go to that station and sell your eagle to get it even faster.
a. Need about 120k if you don’t have the eagle. b. Need about 80k if you do have the eagle. c. It cost more than just the base ship because you are going to want enough to upgrade the Cargo bays to max (Keep your shield unless your playing solo and are brave enough to run from pirates without a net, it will speed up your Cobra)

4) Return your trade route and farm up to 320k, the hauler trade in will cover the rest of the ship. Now buy some cargo bays and keep trading, or put some big guns on it and go be a pirate.

Alternative Methods from comments: MSeven Posted: I had the luck of starting in LHS 3447 Sell Freagle Sell Shieldgen and 1 Laser Buy 3 bin Refinery and Minig Laser Fly to LHS 3447 Metallic Ring Load up 4 Cargo and 3 Bins of Palladium (via reliable 10-20% drops) Sell at Mining outpost 200Ls away for roughly 90K per trip.

Similar to above Rosseau commented: I sold the freagle and immediately went into a hauler (stock), and then explored. Two systems can net you ~20K in no time. Then, invest that 20K into a refinery and mining laser. Pristine metallic belt, planetary or solar, doesn’t matter. High reserve or Pristine preferred. There are plenty and your jump range in a hauler is pretty decent. Then mine. Two trips later, I was in my Cobra (took me about 4 hours total?)

And For a Bounty Hunting Method, all I can say its collect that Cargo they spill because it pays for Ammo :).

Good Hunting, CMDR Hawk Slade