Sub- systems | Travelling Elite: Dangerous Guide

Last update: 11 May 2016

There are lots of sub-systems in the Elite, each of them comes with a load of statistics which can be hard to understand at the first glance. The authors didn't work too hard to make it easy to comprehend, but you can find the description of each of them below:

Let's start with the outfitting. To the left there are three bookmarks concerning the shopping:

Hardpoint: these are the slots on which you can mount your weapons.

Internals: These are the compartments where the integral parts of the ship are being mounted; from the engines to the armor.

Livery: This bookmark enables you to change the hull's color and it also enables you to add some stickers to it.

How to read the data shown in each slot? The most important is the type of a hardpoint and its class (orange font). It tells us what can be mounted to it and what maximum size of a component it uses. The text written in the white font tells us which component is already mounted. The blue plus in the upper-right corner indicates the availability of the additional sub-systems which can be mounted to that slot. The availability of the component is dependable from the station's economy. To improve the ship it is the best to look for the high tech stations or the industrial ones, as they offer a bigger range of improvements.

The description of the statistics is based on the ship's generator but nevertheless, the same rules apply for every other sub-system. Different statistics may appear but these will be very easy to understand. Here are the least understandable ones:

Class: it is simply the size of the component. The slot to which you can mount the component is compatible with its class or with the lower one. This is the reason for you not seeing the components of a higher class than your slot. The smaller components can be mounted on the higher class slots but it isn't recommendable. Try to match the component's class to the slot if possible. There are classes from 1 to the 8 in the Elite (whereas the 8 is the highest one and it gives you the best opportunity to enhance).

Rating: characteristic which indicates the quality of the sub-system.

Integrity: indicates the durability of the sub-system. Many other statistics are also described with the letters.

Letter indicators:

I, H, G, F, E - Very low quality. Will do its job and costs nothing, but can't be considered to be good. Cheap and easily destroyable with a low performance ratings. Usually the equipment you get with the ship.

D - A little better piece of equipment, usually lighter and more power saving, but still of rather poor quality and high fragility.

C - A class to which you should be aiming when doing your first improvements. A bit heavier but efficient and of a good price. You could call it a 'branded' equipment.

B - Heavier than C, more solid and very efficient. Also, more expensive. It is good to skip this class and aim directly for the class A.

A - The very best quality. It is the most efficient class for those who want to squeeze everything from their ships. The prices are breath taking though.

Before buying the sub-system you can easily compare it to the one you already own. The red statistics indicate that something is worse, and the blue one indicate the exact opposite. To correlate both components, select the compare option. Sometimes you may see a better component of the same class but usually these differences are nearly unnoticeable in practice.

The overall influence of mounting a particular component in your ship can be seen in the bottom right corner of the trade screen. Here similarly, the red indicates the change for the worse and the blue for the better. The better component equals a higher power intake and the weight's increase. It is best to start improving the ship from a generator, the engines or the FSD drive.

Remember: When you are buying a new component, its price is lowered by the price of your actual device.