My favourite memory in Elite was from just after I started playing Elite Dangerous, a few months after it's PC release.
I realised I had a free Eagle and had looked over it's stats compared to the Sidewinder and I thought I was extremely clever by downsizing the shield generator. By doing that it outclassed the starting Sidewinder in every. Even with that, making credits was pretty difficult back then, after a few days I was feeling fed up and just about ready to quit. Then I found a mission I had never seen before, I can't remember the exact name because they aren't in the game any more but it was a job for something like a "Freelance Employment Officer", to find "Motivated Employees", basically a euphemism for acquiring slaves. At first I thought I wouldn't do it, for obvious reasons, but they were paying out 70000 credits or so for 2 "Employees". That was more than four times what any other missions I could fit in my Eagle were paying. After about a minutes indecision greed overcame morality.
I had taken the mission in Serebrov Station somewhere near LHS 3447. I can't remember the system name off the top of my head now, but I have it bookmarked because I ended up operating out of there for a while. My search took quite a while but eventually I found a platform with pirate markings in Bavaringoni. There were 4 slaves there, so I took them all figuring I could find another similar mission later. I had never tried smuggling before but I know what to do. I bought Elite Dangerous after seeing Isinona's video on YouTube titled "Smuggler".
I tried the infamous Isinona Manoeuvre, manually dropping just before the safe drop point and flying the last 60 or so kilometres to the station out of supercruise. I lined up with the mailslot about 15 kilometres out and shut down all my ships systems till my Eagle was floating cold and dead. I even shut off the life support so I had 7 minutes to get this done. I switched the thrusters back on and boosted towards the station then killed them again. I was now sitting in an iced over tin can with wings hurtling towards the station at a little over 300m/s. I watched the Fed Vipers prowling around together searching for criminal activity as the distance on my HUD counted down. I passed 7.5 Kilometres and flipped the sensors on to request docking. It was accepted and I killed the sensors again. A few moments later I was passing through the mailslot and hearing the weird muffled sound the airlock makes when you pass through with life support off, something I had never heard before. I turned the thrusters back on and slowed down, it was my first landing without shields but it went surprisingly well and I only took about 2% damage. The mission payed out and there was another waiting there for me ready to take my other two "Employees". I had all the money I needed to fully upgrade the Eagle to my liking. I fitted it for speed, cargo, and jump range with a 1A fuel scoop. I had heard there was money to be made running Onionhead but it but it was to far to get to, before I ungraded my Eagle. So for quite a while I spent all my time in Elite running Onionhead and finding "Motivated Employees". This first act of smuggling is probably my favourite memory in Elite.
A few months later Smuggling got an improvement and the "Freelance Employment Officer", jobs were gone, I was sad about that. But now there were plentiful short distance low cargo smuggling missions everywhere. I upgraded to a Cobra Mk3 and wandered about the galaxy following wherever the smuggling missions would take me. I named the Cobra "Nomad", after the in game lifestyle I had adopted. This was my favourite way to play Elite.
I played like that for quite a while before long range smuggling missions came in. Once again I was sad to see something go, this time it was the plentiful short range smuggling missions and the nomadic play style that came with them. But the long range ones brought much larger profits, and excitement. The constant interdiction attempts from NPCs, the threat of failing all the missions, and having a stack of fines far bigger than the value of the cargo I would have been left with made long range smuggling much more interesting. Fortunately my Cobra "Nomad", was well and truly up for the challenge. This time was great fun too, although I still missed my old Nomadic play style.
Being the Gold Rush of the day many people were complaining about the long range smuggling missions and everyone was sure that a nerf would come. In the end when they were nerfed, it was in the worst possible way for me. By making the cargo amounts much larger, I could no longer use my Cobra. Where before I could grab 2-4 missions and go without waiting making about 10-12 million per run, now the only way to get missions was to sit and board flip until I finally found one that would fit usually making less than 1 million per run. Of course I had plenty of money to buy a bigger ship but none of them was a good fit for me. The AspX is borderline too small, as is the T6, the Python's internals are great and it looks sleek but it's slow and it's not fun to fly, and there aren't any large ships that I really like to fly.
So I focused on other things in the game, basically anything that came along where I could use my Cobra, and periodically running Onionhead for it's now comparatively meagre profit. Smuggling missions are still around, but they are very rare and you have to have good reputation to get them, so it ties you to a home station. The cargo amounts are still huge compared to the early days, so much so that it's not worth taking them in my Cobra even with the ability to split the cargo. If I wanted to run back and forth between the same two stations all day I'd buy a T9 and become a regular trader. Fortunately the Krait Mk2 came along, a ship that had the internal size I needed and that felt good to fly. Then shortly after that the faster, more manoeuvrable Krait Phantom came along. It can only take one smuggling mission at most and sometimes needs to make two trips, but the Krait Phantom is fantastic to fly.
Smuggling in all of it's various forms has been my favourite thing in Elite since I began playing and it's still one of my favourite activities in the game, despite it's lack of profitability. Non-mission smuggling is more profitable than it's ever been and can even pay more than regular trade now which is great, but it scales with bulk just like regular trading so it's not really for me. I still run Onionhead too, in fact I was doing it today in my Krait Phantom, taking Rockforth Fertiliser to Harvestport and bringing the Onionhead back with my hold topped up with beer in the hopes that the fertiliser is tied to the next Interstellar Initiative and might increase the amount available so that hopefully the profit will scale to where it's really worth doing in my Krait. It wasn't really smuggling today though because Onionhead is legal in Riedquat.
I'm sorry I've gone off topic and rambled a lot here and I would like that paintjob if only to add to my Cobra paintjob collection. But thinking about my favourite memories and times in Elite has me thinking that what I would prefer by far is for smuggling to get some attention. I would love to see it made truly viable for small ships again, for it to be more challenging, and to be able to wander about following the smuggling missions like a nomad again.
