Ok, as a beginner, I'm finding this game very frustrating. A few questions:
Why does the landing dock sometimes recognize my approach & other times not? In both cases, I'm hovering directly above the circle & easing down with landing gear deployed.
What is this mode where my flight thrusters aren't responding? How do I get back my flight controls?
Once I engage my FSD, how do I supercruise?
Where can I review information on a mission I've accepted?
Why do I have no choice but to upgrade to the latest build (that breaks my Oculus Rift VR functionality)?
Seriously, I'm on the cusp of asking for a refund. This is supposed to be fun, but all I've done since I got this game was read, study, test, reboot, hack, edit, kludge, struggle, play a little bit, & then resume struggling.
Well, with respect, I have never had my landing information not work as it should, nor has my thrusters ever malfunctioned other than people shooting me.
Once you engage your FSD, you simply raise your speed to 100% which initiates either supercruise or system jumping (for the system jumping, you have to be pointed in the right direction at the system you intend to jump to). If you have a system selected, you will not enter supercruise but a system jump. If you have something in the system selected, you will enter supercruise. If you enter a system, you remain in supercruise until you leave it, you are pulled out of it by interdiction, or you are flying too close to a planetary body.
To review information on a mission you have accepted (I assume you are using the standard controls), select 1 to look at your left pop up screen in the cockpit, select E *or* W until you are in the 'TRANSACTIONS' tab, then select the contract you want to view the information on, and press the spacebar, if I recall correctly. (I use my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick for contract selection and activation.)
I am not responsible for such things, but as the game is, in part, online, everyone needs to be on the same version. I am waiting until the game is a bit more stable re: Oculus Rift until I purchase it (also, I was thinking of waiting for the consumer version).
I am sorry that you are having such troubles. To be honest, I'm quite enjoying the game, although I am finding it quite slow accumulating enough money to get my next ship (I'm in an Eagle that I sold the shields to put in a bigger cargo bay, sold all my weapons to decrease the power consumption, lose weight, and afford cargo after I bought a replacement FSD and power plant so that I could get out of a system with the required cargo I had for a contract.) Even then, I love the fact that I had to make those ugly choices, just as I have had to make hard choices in life.
My thoughts on Elite, and I don't assume you must share it, is that my favorite thing about Elite is that I can remain the same boring, dependable person I am in life, and I am not penalized for it. I FLY IN SPACE! I transfer food to places that need it, I deliver medicines, and coffee, and computer components and anything that I can get my hands on, sometimes because people need it, or sometimes, with the thought of making it big, buying a bigger ship to transfer more, or a more agile one to clean up the riff raff (or be one!), and make my ends meet just as I do in life.
I don't intend to stand on a soapbox, but this game comes far closer to an open-ended experience than you're likely to find, and I would hate it, loath it, if it failed to give you the wonderful (virtual) experiences it has provided me in the last 30 years, but the thing is, this game will NOT give you back something you did not put into it, but it will provide for you if you put in the effort.
Even today, I got an amazing surprise when I had a contract that I was heading to find the items to fill it with, when I, on a whim, dropped out of SC to investigate a USS (Unidentified Signal Source), only to have a pirate consortium offer me more money than the initial contract to bring the items to them!) I had no idea the game did that, and it made me very happy that I can still be surprised after all this time (I'm one of the backers). Or when I had my ship's canopy shatter, and I had to try to get to a station within five minutes, all without the heads up display (well most of it - the canopy showed me what it could in the area left intact.) - Trust me, it's harder than you think to try to line up where you're going without the HUD.
Anyway, I hope to see you out there, and I hope your frustration bleeds off for you to enjoy the game I see on my screen.
Commander Leslie
Boring.
Safe.
Usually has weapons to stave off the flying rats who want my cargo, but not today.