Should the permit for Sol be made avaiable for all?

[Riverside]

I wouldn't be against a Sol permit being purchasable in the store, if that's all a player bought the game for (basic exploration) perhaps it would be enough of a hook to encourage them to explore other known systems & then maybe discover the work that went into the stellar forge

I don't remember whether Sol was the first permit I unlocked but for sure it was the first one I actively intended to unlock.

 

[babelfisch]

IIRC unlocking the Sol permit shouldn't take more than a few hours and you get there by normally playing the game (like doing missions for the Feds).

 

[Franc Kaos]

I always got the impression that system permits and naval ranking was always supposed to have more game play attached to them, not just a flavour paragraph and the odd ship unlock - like the Hutton run was something different and unexpected, but Sol being the birthplace to humanity does mean something and not being permit locked doesn't mean other systems are or giving away fleet carriers (like they do in No Mans Sky).

Visiting Sol is almost a rite of passage and it should be open as an historic place to visit by both Federation and Empire citizens (the cradle of humanity) - there's nothing there anyway, can't land on Triton, Mars or the Moon, no rares or new stuff to discover and not much astronomically speaking. Getting in was my first disappointment honestly (I was expecting a parade). In a thousand + hours of playing I've only gone back a couple of times; luxury cabins - and that was thanks to an external website as Fdev think hiding dealership information is gameplay!

 

[Qualityoflife]

Earth doesn't need anymore pirates

 

[rekurzion]

my two year old once asked the same question of me, why she can't have everything she wants right now without earning it.

 

[WR3ND]

Having a way to get there illegally would be nice. Maybe interstellar supercruising can finally be a thing. I haven't enlisted in the navies in the game in 5+ years, which has taken much more dedication than not.

 

[VerticalBlank]

When it comes to the instant gratification crowd, the answer is always "No. Come back when you've earned it." End of story.

 

[WR3ND]

A lot of proud strutting around on emaciated donkeys going on in this thread.

Must be tough out there.

Good luck.

 

[WR3ND]

IIRC unlocking the Sol permit shouldn't take more than a few hours and you get there by normally playing the game (like doing missions for the Feds).

Yeah, it's an easy given for following the meta along, so I'm not sure why some are viewing it as an accomplishment. An early milestone, yeah, maybe.

 

[WR3ND]

I've liked your post bc it's so general it could apply to either side of the argument, sowing discord and hatred for years to come. Soon we will rise.

Just calling it like I see it to help put things in perspective. Just my opinion though, of course. Tale or leave it at your own discretion.

 

[Qualityoflife]

While we're at it, why don't we all start with all the ships with A rated modules? And all the permits.. And all the engineers unlocked.. Better give me 100,000,000 credits to start with too..

"Kelster87, for president!

Oh wait, then there would be no point in playing..

Never mind there's nothing to see here!

 

[here_it_comes]

...it is kind of anticlimatic for newbies to come into this massive semi-realistic game, hoping to see the solar system and the answer being it is locked behind a grind, behind something that will take them some considerable time, this turned off a lot of people, it gave some players the impresison that the game is only a grind, as perpetuated by some bad mouths around the game.

These "bad mouths" don't happen to be the green new players already complaining of grind, are they?

While I wouldn't mind if they opened up Sol, the heart of your request is just funny. Wait until they find out about the relogging at Guardian ruins for every guardian item in every size and mounting option individually.

 

[DNA-Decay]

Man I wish they'd left in the UA mechanic.

Mars High should be bombed into the Stone Age.

 

[o2thaZ]

Free CG rewards, free copys of ED, free permits, free mats, free Annie at hutton, just because you know Iam a little whining beetch. Zjeez gtfo

Yes very very ty day today!
Plz forgive me
Ill log out for the day
o7

 

[Cmdr Eratosthenes]

6 years, yeah why not ? 'Lore reasons' are silly.

 

[Riverside]

Man I wish they'd left in the UA mechanic.

Mars High should be bombed into the Stone Age.

I think UA bombing was probably OP even with it's corrosive cargo risk, and the Agronomic Treatment stuff is/was a milder replacement for that; in general there could be more negative actions that are countered by basic maintenance of a system (supplying bread & butter cargo to demand to keep a faction happy).

But I don't really see what this has to do with the ability for a player to visit what is only secondarily Fed HQ, primarily it is a tourist destination for new players & it's that primary function that the OP has in mind.

 

[leeG]

No. Sol permit shouldn't be be made available to all.

The Sol permit isn’t hard or a grind to get. I ignored missions for a long time when I started playing this game. Finally bit the bullet just to visit Sol. On a Wednesday I started my Navy career and beginning with 0% rank by Friday I had my Petty Officer stripes and Sol permit. All it took was 35 missions to go all the way from a civilian to recruit to cadet to midshipman to petty officer. All data delivery missions and source commodities missions. I used an iEagle and Cobra Mk.III, but one could do it with an upgraded Freewinder. I don’t do combat in Elite and none was needed. Just had to evade interdictions seven times. Didn’t do mission stacking. Accepted and completed one mission at a time. I stayed in the systems I usually play in and ended each session at my home station. I just played my normal effort. Even took time off from missions to do some mining.

 

[MishaTX]

I'm one of those annoying Yorkshiremen Beta Backers, so I've always had it, but I remember that even having it when I started didn't help me much. The trick was finding out how to plot a route to the damn system with the lousy ship I had at the beginning and the amount of effort it would take to upgrade it to the point where I could even get there easily, even with the permit already given to me. Remember, those were in the days when getting a better FSD was actually hard, and popping a pirate 'Conda (an achievement in its own right) might pay out a whopping 500Cr bounty or so.

So even with the permit given to me for "free", I was proud when I finally managed to plot a route to Sol to visit our ancestral home.

Nowadays, "grinding" the rank to get the permit is easier than ticking off a cat with a cup of water, so removing that as well, to basically remove all of the "you earned it" from the ability to fly through the wonderfully realized model of the Sol system for the first time... Well, might as well throw an "I win" button in the game so we can rid ourselves of the instant gratification ADHD crowd quicker.

If you're shepherding newbs, and full creds to you for doing that, that's true community spirit right there, teach them the ropes and then guide them through that short bit of work required to get the rank necessary to go visit old Sol and maybe even accompany them there for the first time. You'll be doing them a favor, and they'll forever feel that they earned it.

 

[Cryvern]

I could make the same argument about this being worth sticking around for by ranking up so you unlock the system and get to enjoy the familiar sights.

Besides, the first time you drop in on a white dwarf as a new player blows your socks off! Easily a better awe moment than Sol and you don’t need a permit...

Also, it’s really not a grind. The Sol permit is very low hanging fruit these days...

And I would argue that sticking around solely for an unenjoyable grind is not worth the awspiring moment, as you yourself said, there are better places that can do that already and are not permit locked, so why keep this? Trust me when I say that this grind is not easy, not when you are a new comer, that knows nothing, has 10k credits to your name and for you to do the most optimal and boring grind you'd have to put some weeks of your time, droping everything else just so you can see Sol. There are a lot of cool stuff to see in Humanity's starting system, not just the planets and is a nice way to showcase the game's potential.

 

[Cryvern]

Of all the actual grind in Elite, I’d hardly consider Sol permit one of them.

Also if Sol was not permit locked it would probably be full of orange sidewinders because of all the carriers that would be there.

That would be a good thing, new players checking out the game.