Thanks guys I guess I just wanted to hear I'm not the only one I got to Dm a game in a few hours but I'm gonna load it up again and try for a little while longer
Well it's official I'm the worst elite player
- Thread starter Ownagepants
- Start date
It is amazing when you realise just how big that slot is. The first few time though it is a sidey and you kind of duck down. I watch other NPC ships and then followed them in. I also practised manoeuvring around other ships, by using things like the wedding barges. Clean harmless ships in USSs just to learn to track and follow them close etc.
At the same time, I am still rubbish at combat and that is still with over 18 months of game play.
I can see it in my mind already...
You interdicted that conda and typed in the comms "All that tasty cargo, it's a miracle you've come this far"...
Yep, and the Conda did not take well to that .-.
![[VR] Enexemander](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/119/119036.jpg?1621636716){kind=avatar}
The first time I played, I couldn't dock. I was over the pad, and slowly landing on it, and nothing would happen! I just bounced off! So I kept trying, over and over, and getting more agitated, so also faster and faster... until I was slamming the ass of that poor sidewinder down on the pad at full speed while shouting obscenities.
Eventually I just opened fire on the station for being such *expletives*.
It was later I found out that you had to be oriented in the proper direction to dock.
Oops.
Eventually I just opened fire on the station for being such *expletives*.
It was later I found out that you had to be oriented in the proper direction to dock.
Oops.
Hello, Ownagepants.
Worst player...? Aha, bless your soul, no. For the last few days, I've been playing the CG in Arque, bounty-hunting in the Nav Beacon.
In the last twenty-four hours I've somehow managed to collide with the only other visible Commander's ship, despite a gazillion kilometres of empty space available and despite said ship being more or less stationary at the time.
I've somehow managed to get my combat-outfitted Asp nearly killed by a single, solitary Adder, one of the least dangerous ships in the game. It wasn't an Elite NPC, either.
In the last few hours, I've somehow managed to kill an innocent NPC, by accidentally firing missiles at him, when I meant to scan him for Kill Warrants. He'd have survived, but he came after me with lots of missiles of his own - and the stray fire from my Point Defense Turrets apparently took his hull down to zero. I now have a murder bounty for that.
I did all of that while mostly sober and wide awake. I'm a veteran of both the original Elite and Frontier: Elite II. I have been playing ED for over eighteen months.
Given how bad a pilot I am now, just imagine how unbelievably atrocious I was when I started.
Given time and practise, you can and will get better.
Good luck, Ownagepants.
Worst player...? Aha, bless your soul, no. For the last few days, I've been playing the CG in Arque, bounty-hunting in the Nav Beacon.
In the last twenty-four hours I've somehow managed to collide with the only other visible Commander's ship, despite a gazillion kilometres of empty space available and despite said ship being more or less stationary at the time.
I've somehow managed to get my combat-outfitted Asp nearly killed by a single, solitary Adder, one of the least dangerous ships in the game. It wasn't an Elite NPC, either.
In the last few hours, I've somehow managed to kill an innocent NPC, by accidentally firing missiles at him, when I meant to scan him for Kill Warrants. He'd have survived, but he came after me with lots of missiles of his own - and the stray fire from my Point Defense Turrets apparently took his hull down to zero. I now have a murder bounty for that.
I did all of that while mostly sober and wide awake. I'm a veteran of both the original Elite and Frontier: Elite II. I have been playing ED for over eighteen months.
Given how bad a pilot I am now, just imagine how unbelievably atrocious I was when I started.
Given time and practise, you can and will get better.
Good luck, Ownagepants.
I tried to land my shieldless mining Python last night without putting my landing gear down, even though we get both a verbal warning and an on-screen message to alert us to the fact. Hull damage ensued.
@OP - when you read that bear in mind I have assets of over a billion credits and over 1,000 hours in the game. Trust me, we're all hopeless sometimes. Half the players on the forum would tell you stories about accidentally flying their sidewinders into the side of the station, getting blown apart for trying to land on the wrong pad, panicking whilst trying to avoid doing that and accidentally boosting into the back wall, or another ship, or both on a good day, etc, etc. Whatever the absolute worst fail you feel you've had is, you can bet that someone has already done it and someone else has bettered it considerably.
The more you get out of your system now, the less you will do it in your multi-million rebuy cost ship. Like a lot have said, it takes time. I've destroyed so many ships. Went bankrupt and started from scratch at least half a dozen times. And while I'm not rich yet, I have had my share of adventures, I have a decent credit balance, and I am still flying. That's not much, but it's enough.
After all, who said being a pilot was going to be easy?
After all, who said being a pilot was going to be easy?
Oh man that had me laughin. Well, first things first. Find out who cast the hex on you.
Seriously though, we all did the crash and burn thing in the beginning. Be it tagging a wall in the slot, accidently hitting boost while hiding behind an asteroid with no shields (hello roid)...etc. I'm sure there are plenty of folks here to give some pointers or even fly with ya to help out. Maybe you need some fine tuning to your controls...you using a mouse? Flightstick?
Something very important you must do, everyday without fail, even if you don't play on that day.
Take out your mat and face towards Sol. Then pay homage to the Goddess of minions. Only death and destruction, awaits those who don't.
Thanks to the OP for this thread - have a bit'o'rep!
It's too easy to forget the sheer immensity of the 'holy flipping flip' shock-and-awe that is (was for most of us here) the first little while spent in the ED galaxy. So it's always nice to get a reminder.
As has been said by others, stick with it, take your time learning the many and various ropes, and pretty soon you'll be boosting into oblivion against the back wall of a Coriolis along with the best/rest of us...
Yup same here.
(ps never fly without insurance!)
It's too easy to forget the sheer immensity of the 'holy flipping flip' shock-and-awe that is (was for most of us here) the first little while spent in the ED galaxy. So it's always nice to get a reminder.
As has been said by others, stick with it, take your time learning the many and various ropes, and pretty soon you'll be boosting into oblivion against the back wall of a Coriolis along with the best/rest of us...
Yup same here.
(ps never fly without insurance!)
Deleted member 94277
D
+ Rep for CMDR Humble.
Practice makes perfect.
I remember my first day trying to land on the outside of the station cause I couldn't find an entrance.
I remember my first day trying to land on the outside of the station cause I couldn't find an entrance.
You sure are ambitious. [up]
The FIRST ship to interdict my Sidewinder was an Anaconda.
I flew along the expanse of it's hull, thinking "Oooooooooohhhhhhh noooooooooo! It's a Star Destroyer!" But then it bugged out, and wouldn't shoot. So I started firing with the fixed pulse lasers. After what seemed like an hour, it blew up and I had a bounty of over 100,000 creds.
You just never know how things will turn out.
Sounds like you have the skills to be a ranking Zach Hudson Pledgee
Cheer up CMDR! You will be laughing of all the silly mistakes you have made in no-time. As several already have said: Learning the game - falling flat on your face (ie boosting into the station) and then getting up and trying again is what works, and boy does it feel good when you finally get it right
Elite is very unforgiving, and can be overwhelming at first - which is why CMDR Hell Razor5543 have set up his mentoring agency for new CMDR's such as yourself.
Here is a link to his thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/146938-Hell-Razors-Mentoring-Agency
If you post in that thread, or pm him, heck even add him as a friend ingame, I'm quite sure he will help you out.
With his expertise you will be up and running within hours
Elite is very unforgiving, and can be overwhelming at first - which is why CMDR Hell Razor5543 have set up his mentoring agency for new CMDR's such as yourself.
Here is a link to his thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/146938-Hell-Razors-Mentoring-Agency
If you post in that thread, or pm him, heck even add him as a friend ingame, I'm quite sure he will help you out.
With his expertise you will be up and running within hours
Dude look me up if your having trouble I'll be leaving my current location in about 5 hours. And I can meat you at the starter station pick up a sidewinder and we can work on some things together I am still learning a lot myself and I alongside other great CMDRs here can help you out. My GT is Crowdman86. Looking forward to meeting you CMDR.
OP, let me tell you a story.
I'm not close to the greatest pilot. There are many many commanders who have already posted in this thread who are much better than I am.
I'm only ranked Dangerous after over two years of playing - I've been playing since standard beta, and we kept our progress from gamma. So not even Elite yet... I'm still two ranks away. I haven't gone out of my way to gain combat ranks, but we all start at Harmless.
But I do consider myself fairly competent at piloting. I have a lot of processes and procedures I've made second nature while flying. I don't consider myself terrible.
This story is about something that happened two days ago.
So there I was, flying over a planet surface. I'd discovered a ship crash site and salvaged some Jadeite from it. I'd discovered a crashed satellite by eye, which I was proud of, and was carefully hovering over it, concentrating on landing. Crashed satellites often have some nice rare data finds.
A contact appeared on my scope. My processes kicked in and I swung my nose up, and scanned the arrival. I got lazy and only half-completed my mental checklist. Harmless combat rank. Sidewinder. No shields. Clean.
At that point I felt irritated at the distraction as I'd allowed my ship to slide sideways and momentarily lost the crash site. I pointed my nose back down and tried to find it again.
I'd omitted the full check on the new contact out of laziness and complacency. I'd normally also check faction, and wait for a scan. Because if I'd checked, I would have seen the Sidewinder belonged to the system's pirate faction. And when he scanned me, he actually told me he was a pirate and wondered what I was hauling.
But I wasn't paying attention. I wanted to find that crashed satellite. I ignored the chat, and missed everything he said that basically red-flagged he was about to attack me.
So the first I knew about it was when his pulse lasers started hitting my shields.
I reacted. Panic. I hit landing gear. And then I hit boost. My poor Cobra Mk III ploughed facefirst into the ground at full boost.
My shields collapsed. My hull crumpled. 30% integrity in a second.
I was stuck at full burn until the boost finished with my nose in the ground. The Sidewinder just sat there behind me merrily plinking away at my unshielded hull. In desperation I tried to pull my nose up, to try to stop any further damage. I failed dismally. Instead my Cobra began surfing across the planet surface, ploughing and scraping slowly along the ground. 25% hull. 20% hull.
Let's freeze this moment.
All I could think was, "Unbelievable. Over two years of experience, Dangerous ranked. I've killed Anacondas all the way up to Elite. Fer de Lances. Vultures. In this damn Cobra. Even with the new AI. And here I am, today. About to be killed by a shieldless Harmless NPC Sidewinder. This will not be a story for sharing." Well. I guess that didn't turn out to be true.
I managed to pull up my nose, and get into the sky. Something cleared my mental hesitation and confusion. I guess I sharpened up enough, because I quickly made two observation and one decision. I'm in a Cobra. I'm faster. He's a Harmless-ranked NPC. He won't hit much. My decision? Boost away down a canyon. Finally I did something right.
In the end I managed to fake-out down a side canyon and get up and behind him... two hits with a plasma accelerator paired with a gimballed cannon were enough to destroy that poor brave little Sidewinder.
Wow was it embarrassing. And I'm telling you this story because if an Elite player of two years experience can make such a string of terrible decisions and end up limping away from a Harmless shieldless NPC Sidewinder with less than 20% hull, two days ago, then you are doing fine. You are doing more than fine.
If only you knew what I did when I first started. I boosted inside the docking bay and pancaked into the wall twice in a row. My very first delivery mission, I had 8 computer components and was in the docking bay of the mission destination and then I accidentally hit the jettison all button instead of the landing gear button. Try to imagine a Hauler miserably chasing 8 cargo canisters bouncing around the rolling inner barrel of a station in a futile attempt to recover the mission cargo before the landing permission ran out. I lost my shield crashing around into all the buildings and I'd never used the cargo scoop before. I rammed at least one canister until it exploded. It was the definition of a clownshoes moment. I failed the mission of course. And nearly got blown up by station security when my landing permission timer ran out and they told me to get out or be destroyed. I spent at least 30 panicked seconds trying to work out where the exit slot was and even then nearly lost what was left of my hull bouncing off the rack in my desperation to get out. Did I mention I'd accidentally turned off rotational correction too? Yeah. Yeah. Now I... I... really was terrible.
My first time trying to be an awesome pro bounty-hunter in my brand spanking new Eagle, I dropped into a resource extraction site pumped up with excitement and adrenaline, boosted towards the asteroids. I almost immediately targeted and found a wanted target.... "You're MINE," I crowed, already imagining the tired well-won triumph as I flew back into the station, congratulating myself on my modest heroism. I deployed my hardpoints. Every system on my ship shut down. As my pirate target gently turned and flew out of view to scan some other miner, I watched the asteroid in front of me getting bigger. Of course, I didn't know anything about power draw from modules. Of course, I hadn't bothered to check if my Eagle's E-rated powerplant could handle deploying my 3 beam lasers. I spent all my money on the beam lasers of course. The powerplant could wait.
I kind of froze up. I could have done a lot of things. Could have. Instead, the only thing that came to me was the slightly pathetic thought, "Maybe I shouldn't have boosted straight towards the asteroids", before my Eagle smashed into the asteroid and exploded gloriously.
You're doing great. Trust me on this. Trust everyone else on this too. You have to learn to fly, and it takes time. And every time you have to learn something new, you're likely to mess it up. Thought that growing realisation is, itself, a kind of learning.
Whoa, that's pretty meta, now I think about it.
Good flying, commander
I'm not close to the greatest pilot. There are many many commanders who have already posted in this thread who are much better than I am.
I'm only ranked Dangerous after over two years of playing - I've been playing since standard beta, and we kept our progress from gamma. So not even Elite yet... I'm still two ranks away. I haven't gone out of my way to gain combat ranks, but we all start at Harmless.
But I do consider myself fairly competent at piloting. I have a lot of processes and procedures I've made second nature while flying. I don't consider myself terrible.
This story is about something that happened two days ago.
So there I was, flying over a planet surface. I'd discovered a ship crash site and salvaged some Jadeite from it. I'd discovered a crashed satellite by eye, which I was proud of, and was carefully hovering over it, concentrating on landing. Crashed satellites often have some nice rare data finds.
A contact appeared on my scope. My processes kicked in and I swung my nose up, and scanned the arrival. I got lazy and only half-completed my mental checklist. Harmless combat rank. Sidewinder. No shields. Clean.
At that point I felt irritated at the distraction as I'd allowed my ship to slide sideways and momentarily lost the crash site. I pointed my nose back down and tried to find it again.
I'd omitted the full check on the new contact out of laziness and complacency. I'd normally also check faction, and wait for a scan. Because if I'd checked, I would have seen the Sidewinder belonged to the system's pirate faction. And when he scanned me, he actually told me he was a pirate and wondered what I was hauling.
But I wasn't paying attention. I wanted to find that crashed satellite. I ignored the chat, and missed everything he said that basically red-flagged he was about to attack me.
So the first I knew about it was when his pulse lasers started hitting my shields.
I reacted. Panic. I hit landing gear. And then I hit boost. My poor Cobra Mk III ploughed facefirst into the ground at full boost.
My shields collapsed. My hull crumpled. 30% integrity in a second.
I was stuck at full burn until the boost finished with my nose in the ground. The Sidewinder just sat there behind me merrily plinking away at my unshielded hull. In desperation I tried to pull my nose up, to try to stop any further damage. I failed dismally. Instead my Cobra began surfing across the planet surface, ploughing and scraping slowly along the ground. 25% hull. 20% hull.
Let's freeze this moment.
All I could think was, "Unbelievable. Over two years of experience, Dangerous ranked. I've killed Anacondas all the way up to Elite. Fer de Lances. Vultures. In this damn Cobra. Even with the new AI. And here I am, today. About to be killed by a shieldless Harmless NPC Sidewinder. This will not be a story for sharing." Well. I guess that didn't turn out to be true.
I managed to pull up my nose, and get into the sky. Something cleared my mental hesitation and confusion. I guess I sharpened up enough, because I quickly made two observation and one decision. I'm in a Cobra. I'm faster. He's a Harmless-ranked NPC. He won't hit much. My decision? Boost away down a canyon. Finally I did something right.
In the end I managed to fake-out down a side canyon and get up and behind him... two hits with a plasma accelerator paired with a gimballed cannon were enough to destroy that poor brave little Sidewinder.
Wow was it embarrassing. And I'm telling you this story because if an Elite player of two years experience can make such a string of terrible decisions and end up limping away from a Harmless shieldless NPC Sidewinder with less than 20% hull, two days ago, then you are doing fine. You are doing more than fine.
If only you knew what I did when I first started. I boosted inside the docking bay and pancaked into the wall twice in a row. My very first delivery mission, I had 8 computer components and was in the docking bay of the mission destination and then I accidentally hit the jettison all button instead of the landing gear button. Try to imagine a Hauler miserably chasing 8 cargo canisters bouncing around the rolling inner barrel of a station in a futile attempt to recover the mission cargo before the landing permission ran out. I lost my shield crashing around into all the buildings and I'd never used the cargo scoop before. I rammed at least one canister until it exploded. It was the definition of a clownshoes moment. I failed the mission of course. And nearly got blown up by station security when my landing permission timer ran out and they told me to get out or be destroyed. I spent at least 30 panicked seconds trying to work out where the exit slot was and even then nearly lost what was left of my hull bouncing off the rack in my desperation to get out. Did I mention I'd accidentally turned off rotational correction too? Yeah. Yeah. Now I... I... really was terrible.
My first time trying to be an awesome pro bounty-hunter in my brand spanking new Eagle, I dropped into a resource extraction site pumped up with excitement and adrenaline, boosted towards the asteroids. I almost immediately targeted and found a wanted target.... "You're MINE," I crowed, already imagining the tired well-won triumph as I flew back into the station, congratulating myself on my modest heroism. I deployed my hardpoints. Every system on my ship shut down. As my pirate target gently turned and flew out of view to scan some other miner, I watched the asteroid in front of me getting bigger. Of course, I didn't know anything about power draw from modules. Of course, I hadn't bothered to check if my Eagle's E-rated powerplant could handle deploying my 3 beam lasers. I spent all my money on the beam lasers of course. The powerplant could wait.
I kind of froze up. I could have done a lot of things. Could have. Instead, the only thing that came to me was the slightly pathetic thought, "Maybe I shouldn't have boosted straight towards the asteroids", before my Eagle smashed into the asteroid and exploded gloriously.
You're doing great. Trust me on this. Trust everyone else on this too. You have to learn to fly, and it takes time. And every time you have to learn something new, you're likely to mess it up. Thought that growing realisation is, itself, a kind of learning.
Whoa, that's pretty meta, now I think about it.
Good flying, commander
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More like a book lol.