I'm just being a curmudgeon! I don't think they should exist at all, I think combat should be an integral part of the game. The danger in Elite should be in the fabric of the galaxy, inherent in trading the riskier routes, not partitioned in an artificial arena.
Jacques Cousteau got me hooked on scuba diving! Closest thing to space exploration
I think you and I are cut from the same cloth. My Pop was a PADI instructor, I took my first open water dive at Lou Key in Florida at 8 yrs old (1984) ... Scuba is indeed as close as you can get to space!
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My first go at scuba
Edit: a few years earlier, my Dad had me convinced that DISKY, the computer that was guiding a mission to Pluto, was sending me mail. I sent
DISKY a handwritten letter every month for a year when I was in first grade and every time, DISKY mailed me back.
It was all 000001111010101000100101010101011100111111111111100000000000111010101010100101.
Only when I turned 17 or 18 did I realize that it was all my Dad doing that. I thought my whole young life that I talked to
a NASA computer, and it was taking time out to respond to me.
Pretty awesome Pops I got.