last night i finally got into the game properly (merc with combat demo only before that).
i did some courier missions, made my first 10K and celebrated!
i pulled in a bit more then with the discovery scanner swapped for cargo bay i decided it was time to start playing the market. i invested all my cash (all 14K!) in expensive metals and then went splat against a station for the first time.
that put me into debt as i had an upgraded jump drive and of course the cargo bay. d'oh!
but i struck out again with my new loan, this time i made it up to 30K! so i decided to try the heavy metals again, found a station with a good price under galactic norm with a few systems near by they were importing. flew 30K's worth of heavy metals (are you spotting a pattern yet?) out to the next system. huh, that would sell at a loss, turns out they were exporting too. checked the map for another import, checked system map to confirm they were importing metals. same thing, they had more than enough. guess the market had been saturated as it was the best deal in the sub 3K/ton price range.
ok, lets try another type of economy, maybe they wont have a high demand but hey, i only have 6 tons to shift. so i get there and amble through the stations ring making sure the arm is miles away (not my first time doing that). then while i'm distracted trying to talk a friend through some stuff i drift into the ring its self and blow up. d'oh!
at least this time i didn't have to take a loan out, but i'm right back to near the starting credits again.
ok, once more into the breech! chance of pace though, by now i need to blow something up. after hopping in a few unknowns i find a cobra mk III with a half decent skill rating, not my cup of tea in a sidewinder with two lasers even a cat wouldn't be interested in, but he's under attack so i join in right and the end and steal the kill from 2 cops. ahh, that was a nice bounty! then i find a viper with no shields, don't fancy my chances against a good viper, but this pilot is clearly a novice, says so right there on my screen. cash both of those in at a station and rip the pewpew stick off and put some gattling guns on. sure the reload is annoying, but at least they can fire for longer at a time.
they work a treat, i manage to steal a kill from 3 cops next and the fight is a lot less like pulling teeth and a lot more like shredding my opponent.
i then mix some courier missions up with unknowns on the way to port and pimp my sidewinder up a bit with the profits (only low lvl upgrades mind). some more scrapping later and i'm feeling the itch to fly my eagle again (i took it for a spin round the station before i left the starting system).
so i head back home and throw some cash and 3 gattling guns onto my eagle then take it out on the hunt. didn't find any big bounties but it did feel a lot better to fight in.
so, 1 evening done (well, from 6Pm to 4AM!) and i probably pulled in enough cash to buy a new ship, but spread a lot of it all over the station walls. live and learn eh?
all in all it was a great evening, losses included. it's so very different from frontier or first encounters where you essentially never go backwards in cash due to save games. but this has been fun, it's scratched that itch elite 2&3 left on me and i've had a ton of fun flying in the new and improved galaxy.
great launch guys, now get my imperial courier out the door!