What the heck is this? and why should I read what this idiot has to say? In short this is an attempt to record and catalogue my ED experience and there is absolutely no reason to listen to what I have to say except that it might be fun! we might learn something! and I hope to bring a wry smile to your wee face.
New players will definitely get some useful information regarding what NOT to do and hopefully get some inspiration to persevere with or even return to the game with renewed vigour.
Veteran commanders will hopefully have a wee chuckle at my clueless antics. With their wealth of experience, skills and awesome ships (I am not jealous at all), they may have forgotten what it like to stumble through the galaxy and to be (sometimes justifiably) attacked as you arrive at some new structure / site and attempt to figure out What IS this? Can I scan it? Should I scan it?
More than once I have accidentally popped my weapons out and greeted with a very predictable response, e.g. a rapid death and re-purchasing of my destroyed ship.
So anyway, Who am I? I am a noob. Plain and simple. I have never played Elite in any of its previous incarnations, I have watched friends play it and loved the idea of flying around the galaxy and getting into scrapes like some Han Solo character. But until about a year ago I had never sat in the cockpit and experienced the ‘loop of shame’. In fact, I knew that bombing past your desired destination due to some real world distraction had to be a thing. When I first heard the phrase I just thought:
“yep, of course that is the name for such idiocy”
I did however, take comfort in the fact that everyone has done it (more times than we really would like to admit).
First, I will tell you a little about my experience so far and then I will record at regular intervals all my bad decisions and happy accidents as I aimlessly meander around the galaxy. I hope some of my experiences have been or will be familiar to you. Additionally, I really think I will need some help and advice as I travel and would greatly appreciate anything you have to say. (keep it clean y’all)
The story so far…
As I have said, I am a absolute beginner. I first fired up a PS4 version of ED about a year ago and immediately was overwhelmed by the (seemingly) never ending rabbit hole of menus within menus, which hide even more confusing menus only to bottom out at a screen that made no sense to me. I’d stare blankly at it for a while and then usually backed the F up with a shake of the head and a vow to come back and figure it out later. Which for the most part I have and they (not surprisingly) gradually became a useful resource of in game information. Which is pretty obvious really because why would they be included in the game if they were not of use!
It was just my inability, at the time, to comprehend what use they might have been to me that caused my distress from information overload.
Reading through that last paragraph, you may be getting the impression that I am frustrated with the game but the opposite was actually true (well kinda frustrated at times). I was compelled to get to grips with the game mechanics because of my confusion. I liked not having a clue and merrily stumbled through my first week or so of playing ED being happily surprised when I finally figured out what that menu screen was actually telling me!
It is always encouraging when you go from a position of complete ignorance to one of ever so slightly less ignorance. In addition there has been moments, when flicking rapidly through menus to set ‘stuff’, that I realised I might actually be getting a handle on this nonsense. Therefore, I deserved a victorious Whiskey, to commemorate not be as quite as daft as I was yesterday (any excuse will do for a cheeky wee dram!).
The first few days of playing, I randomly ran courier missions, completed some harmless bounties, ferried synthetic meat (Mm, tastey?) somewhere else and generally learnt what the options were for gameplay in ED. I decided that I should get myself a bigger ship (learning about the various ships available was another rabbit hole in itself) so, I started to grind some credits to buy ‘stuff’ for whichever new ship I purchased. I enjoyed it for a while but then got disheartened jumping from system to system with no real drive except to aimlessly earn credits. Not sustainable fun for me.
I wanted to explore, I wanted to see weird planets, skim the frozen rings around gas giants and more importantly (to stoke my own ego) find an undiscovered system! So, like the totally clueless noob I was I set off to ‘explore the galaxy’’… in a box standard Sidewinder!?! yeah, I know now how daft that was but nevertheless I really enjoyed jumping 7ly a time and thought I was going into the unknown. lol
That lasted a couple of days (only really a couple of gaming sessions, so not really a long period of time) but then I got stuck in a system from which I couldn’t go any further forward! As Scotty was fond of saying:
“She did-nae have the power cap’n.”
So, with my tail firmly between my legs I limped back to the bubble (which I had barely left) and reconsidered my position.
I think I had managed to scrap enough credits to buy my new (and present) ship the classic Cobra Mk III but I may have done a Road to Riches flight in the Sidewinder. I am not sure. I definitely did one and gained a shed load of credits (also got Kepler's Eye achievement during that voyage…I think) but it was so long ago I am not sure which ship I used.
And then….
I just kinda did ‘stuff’ without any real purpose and slowly lost interest. I would log on and do a wee courier run or tried to improve my fighter pilot skills by taking on (harmless) bounties but it wasn’t my thing and stopped playing for a few months, only recently (cvid-lockdown-stir-crazy-madness) I jumped back in with a determination to go exploring!
I kitted my Cobra out for longer jumps (a massive 25ly ;-)) and just headed out on the hyper way, “looking for adventure or whatever came my way”. That is where I am now, somewhere beyond the California Nebula in a system whose name is a bunch of letters and numbers almost exactly the same as all the other system names which surround it in the galaxy map but having an awesome time!
OK, that is enough rambling for today. I haven’t actually wrote about any of the stuff I was gonna discuss, like Exploring….. but hey ho, gotta go.
Hasta maňana amigos. Take care out there.
Cmdr Smokey MacPotface
New players will definitely get some useful information regarding what NOT to do and hopefully get some inspiration to persevere with or even return to the game with renewed vigour.
Veteran commanders will hopefully have a wee chuckle at my clueless antics. With their wealth of experience, skills and awesome ships (I am not jealous at all), they may have forgotten what it like to stumble through the galaxy and to be (sometimes justifiably) attacked as you arrive at some new structure / site and attempt to figure out What IS this? Can I scan it? Should I scan it?
More than once I have accidentally popped my weapons out and greeted with a very predictable response, e.g. a rapid death and re-purchasing of my destroyed ship.
So anyway, Who am I? I am a noob. Plain and simple. I have never played Elite in any of its previous incarnations, I have watched friends play it and loved the idea of flying around the galaxy and getting into scrapes like some Han Solo character. But until about a year ago I had never sat in the cockpit and experienced the ‘loop of shame’. In fact, I knew that bombing past your desired destination due to some real world distraction had to be a thing. When I first heard the phrase I just thought:
“yep, of course that is the name for such idiocy”
I did however, take comfort in the fact that everyone has done it (more times than we really would like to admit).
First, I will tell you a little about my experience so far and then I will record at regular intervals all my bad decisions and happy accidents as I aimlessly meander around the galaxy. I hope some of my experiences have been or will be familiar to you. Additionally, I really think I will need some help and advice as I travel and would greatly appreciate anything you have to say. (keep it clean y’all)
The story so far…
As I have said, I am a absolute beginner. I first fired up a PS4 version of ED about a year ago and immediately was overwhelmed by the (seemingly) never ending rabbit hole of menus within menus, which hide even more confusing menus only to bottom out at a screen that made no sense to me. I’d stare blankly at it for a while and then usually backed the F up with a shake of the head and a vow to come back and figure it out later. Which for the most part I have and they (not surprisingly) gradually became a useful resource of in game information. Which is pretty obvious really because why would they be included in the game if they were not of use!
It was just my inability, at the time, to comprehend what use they might have been to me that caused my distress from information overload.
Reading through that last paragraph, you may be getting the impression that I am frustrated with the game but the opposite was actually true (well kinda frustrated at times). I was compelled to get to grips with the game mechanics because of my confusion. I liked not having a clue and merrily stumbled through my first week or so of playing ED being happily surprised when I finally figured out what that menu screen was actually telling me!
It is always encouraging when you go from a position of complete ignorance to one of ever so slightly less ignorance. In addition there has been moments, when flicking rapidly through menus to set ‘stuff’, that I realised I might actually be getting a handle on this nonsense. Therefore, I deserved a victorious Whiskey, to commemorate not be as quite as daft as I was yesterday (any excuse will do for a cheeky wee dram!).
The first few days of playing, I randomly ran courier missions, completed some harmless bounties, ferried synthetic meat (Mm, tastey?) somewhere else and generally learnt what the options were for gameplay in ED. I decided that I should get myself a bigger ship (learning about the various ships available was another rabbit hole in itself) so, I started to grind some credits to buy ‘stuff’ for whichever new ship I purchased. I enjoyed it for a while but then got disheartened jumping from system to system with no real drive except to aimlessly earn credits. Not sustainable fun for me.
I wanted to explore, I wanted to see weird planets, skim the frozen rings around gas giants and more importantly (to stoke my own ego) find an undiscovered system! So, like the totally clueless noob I was I set off to ‘explore the galaxy’’… in a box standard Sidewinder!?! yeah, I know now how daft that was but nevertheless I really enjoyed jumping 7ly a time and thought I was going into the unknown. lol
That lasted a couple of days (only really a couple of gaming sessions, so not really a long period of time) but then I got stuck in a system from which I couldn’t go any further forward! As Scotty was fond of saying:
“She did-nae have the power cap’n.”
So, with my tail firmly between my legs I limped back to the bubble (which I had barely left) and reconsidered my position.
I think I had managed to scrap enough credits to buy my new (and present) ship the classic Cobra Mk III but I may have done a Road to Riches flight in the Sidewinder. I am not sure. I definitely did one and gained a shed load of credits (also got Kepler's Eye achievement during that voyage…I think) but it was so long ago I am not sure which ship I used.
And then….
I just kinda did ‘stuff’ without any real purpose and slowly lost interest. I would log on and do a wee courier run or tried to improve my fighter pilot skills by taking on (harmless) bounties but it wasn’t my thing and stopped playing for a few months, only recently (cvid-lockdown-stir-crazy-madness) I jumped back in with a determination to go exploring!
I kitted my Cobra out for longer jumps (a massive 25ly ;-)) and just headed out on the hyper way, “looking for adventure or whatever came my way”. That is where I am now, somewhere beyond the California Nebula in a system whose name is a bunch of letters and numbers almost exactly the same as all the other system names which surround it in the galaxy map but having an awesome time!
OK, that is enough rambling for today. I haven’t actually wrote about any of the stuff I was gonna discuss, like Exploring….. but hey ho, gotta go.
Hasta maňana amigos. Take care out there.
Cmdr Smokey MacPotface
