Guides // Getting Started

Glossary

A list of terms and abbreviations used in the Elite Dangerous.

Glossary

The terminology and abbreviations used throughout the guides and Elite Dangerous.

Abbr	Name	Description
AFMU	Auto Field-Maintenance Unit	Repairs modules in the field from its own ammunition pool. Cannot repair the hull or itself.
AX	Anti-Xeno	Fighting Thargoids. Needs Guardian or AX weapons — conventional hardpoints barely scratch them.
AXI	Anti-Xeno Initiative	The community group that documents Thargoid combat and material gathering.
BARTENDER	Concourse Bar	The bar on a station concourse. Buys and sells Odyssey goods, assets and data, and sells the odd rumour.
BLUE ZONE	Blue Zone	The blue band on the throttle where your ship turns fastest. Not the same as the landing approach band.
BUBBLE	The Bubble	Inhabited space around Sol, roughly 400 ly across. Everything outside it is the black.
CANONN	Canonn Interstellar Research Group	The community research group that maps Guardian sites and alien phenomena.
CG	Community Goal	A time-limited galaxy-wide effort with tiered payouts. Good money while one is running; never a plan.
CMDR	Commander	What the Pilots Federation calls you, and what commanders call each other.
CONTACTS	Contacts	The left-panel tab for the people at a port: docking requests, mission givers, and the desks that pay out vouchers.
CZ	Conflict Zone	Faction warfare in open space. Pick a side on arrival and get paid in combat bonds.
DOCKING COMPUTER	Docking Computer	An optional size-1 module that does the approach and landing for you. Standard only auto-docks while Advanced both docks and launches automatically.
DS	Discovery Scanner	Fitted to every hull and cannot be removed. One honk on arrival counts the bodies in a system and draws their orbits — the FSS identifies them, the DSS maps them.
DSS	Detailed Surface Scanner	Fires probes at a body to map it. Raises the cartographic payout and reveals surface signals.
ELW	Earth-Like World	The rarest and most valuable body class to scan and map.
FA	Flight Assist	The computer that kills drift and holds your attitude. Switching it off gives you raw Newtonian flight.
FIRST DISCOVERED	First Discovered	First commander to resolve a body before anyone else. Pays a bonus and puts your name on the System Map — on sale, not on scan.
FIRST FOOTFALL	First Footfall	First commander to step onto a body. Pays nothing directly, but guarantees you are the first to sample life there.
FIRST LOGGED	First Logged	First commander in the galaxy to sell a species to Vista Genomics. Five times the base value.
FIRST MAPPED	First Mapped	First commander to map a body with the DSS before anyone else. A second bonus on top of the first.
FSD	Frame Shift Drive	The drive that does both jobs: hyperspace jumps between systems, and supercruise inside them.
FSS	Full Spectrum System Scanner	The frequency dial you tune from the cockpit to resolve every unidentified body in a system.
FUEL STAR	Fuel Star	A star that can be scooped for free fuel. Only main-sequence classes K, G, B, F, O, A, M can be scooped — remember them as KGBFOAM.
GALAXY MAP	Galaxy Map	The between-systems map. Plots routes, filters stars by class, and is where every trip starts.
GENETIC SAMPLER	Genetic Sampler	The Artemis Suit tool that takes bio samples. Three per species, spread apart by the genus colony distance.
GRADE	Grade	How rare a material or blueprint is, from 1 to 5. Higher grades store fewer units and cost more.
HEATSINK	Heat Sink Launcher	Dumps the ship’s heat into an ejected sink. Also the way to survive silent running.
HGE	High-Grade Emissions	A short-lived supercruise signal packed with one Grade-5 manufactured material.
HIGH-WAKE	High-Wake	Leaving by hyperspace jump to another system. Nothing can follow you through it.
HONK	Discovery Scanner Honk	Holding the Discovery Scanner on arrival. Reveals how many bodies a system holds and where they sit.
INTERDICTION	Interdiction	Being pulled out of supercruise by another ship. Escape by keeping the marker centred, or submit.
INTERSTELLAR FACTORS	Interstellar Factors Contact	A contact in low-security systems that clears fines and bounties from other jurisdictions, for a cut.
KWS	Kill Warrant Scanner	Reveals bounties a target carries in other jurisdictions, raising the payout when you kill it.
LIMPET	Limpet	A single-use drone that collects, prospects, repairs, or researches. Weighs a tonne and rides in the hold.
LOOP OF SHAME	Loop Of Shame	Overshooting a station in supercruise and having to turn around and come back. Everyone does it.
LOW-WAKE	Low-Wake	Dropping back into supercruise instead of jumping. The same ship can interdict you again.
LS	Light-Second	Distance inside a system. A station 200,000 Ls out is a long supercruise, jump range be damned.
LY	Light-Year	Distance between systems. Your jump range is measured in these.
MAILSLOT	Station Mailslot	The letterbox slit in the face of a starport, and the only way in or out. Mind the speed limit.
MASSACRE MISSION	Massacre Mission	A contract to kill a set number of pirates or ships of a faction. Reads the kill, not the site — a conflict-zone one will not accept RES kills.
MERGE	Merge	The head-on pass at the start of a dogfight, where both ships cross.
MODULE RATING	Module Rating	Modules are sized 1–8 and rated A–E. A is best and heaviest, D is lightest, E is cheapest.
MT	Material Trader	A station contact that swaps materials within one inventory — down a grade cheaply, up expensively.
NAV BEACON	Navigation Beacon	The traffic marker every populated system carries. Scan it for system data; loiter for easy bounties.
NHSS	Non-Human Signal Source	A Thargoid signal in supercruise. The threat number tells you what is waiting.
NPC	Non-Player Character	A ship or person nobody is flying — crew, security, pirates, and traffic.
OPEN PLAY	Open Play	The shared galaxy where other commanders can find you — and shoot you. Solo and private groups do not.
OUTFITTING	Outfitting	The starport service that sells and swaps modules. Stock varies by port — a large orbital carries more than an outpost.
PF	Pilots Federation	The organization that oversees and represents the galaxy's independent pilots.
PIONEER SUPPLIES	Pioneer Supplies	The concourse shop for suits, handheld weapons and consumables. Where the Artemis Suit comes from.
PIPS	Power Distributor Pips	Six units of capacitor power split between SYS, ENG, and WEP. No group takes more than four.
PVE	Player Versus Environment	Flying against ships nobody is piloting, rather than against other commanders.
PVP	Player Versus Player	Fighting other commanders. Only possible in Open Play.
PWA	Pulse Wave Analyser	A utility mount that pings a ring and lights up asteroids holding something worth mining.
REBUY	Rebuy	The insurance excess to get your ship back after it explodes — about 5% of hull and modules.
REDEMPTION OFFICE	Redemption Office	The desk that pays out bounty vouchers and combat bonds. Also installable on a fleet carrier.
RELOG	Relog	Logging out and back in to rebuild the instance, so a picked-over site respawns its loot.
RES	Resource Extraction Site	A spot in a planetary ring where miners work and pirates hunt them. Comes in four intensities.
RNG	Random Number Generator	Random chance. Nothing you can do makes it come faster.
ROLL	Engineering Roll	One application of a blueprint to a module. Each roll spends materials and improves the result a little.
SCO	Supercruise Overcharge	A Frame Shift Drive that can dump extra acceleration into supercruise. Fast, thirsty, and hot.
SECURE WAREHOUSE	Secure Warehouse	The black market on a fleet carrier. Moves stolen cargo with nobody asking where it came from.
SLV	Ship-Launched Vessel	A small craft launched from a medium or large hull — a combat fighter flown by you or by crew, or the Nomad, which lands where your ship cannot.
SRV	Surface Recon Vehicle	The wheeled buggy you drive on planet surfaces. Needs a Planetary Vehicle Hangar.
STACKING	Stacking Missions	Taking several contracts with the same objective from different factions, so one run pays all of them.
SUBMIT	Interdiction Submit	Throttle to zero during an interdiction. You drop out anyway, but with a far shorter drive cooldown.
SYNTHESIS	Synthesis	Building ammunition, fuel injections, and repairs out of raw materials from the inventory menu.
SYSTEM MAP	System Map	The inside-one-system map. Bodies, ports, and how many light seconds out each one sits.
TB	Tech Broker	A station contact that unlocks modules a shipyard will not stock, paid for in materials.
THE BLACK	The Black	Deep space beyond inhabited systems. No stations, no repairs, no market.
UNIVERSAL CARTOGRAPHICS	Universal Cartographics	The Starport Services desk that buys exploration data. Every station has one, and a fleet carrier can install one.
VISTA GENOMICS	Vista Genomics	The concourse desk that buys biological samples. Odyssey stations only, and installable on a fleet carrier.
WING	Wing	A group of up to four commanders flying together and sharing mission credit.