Fleet carriers + Mount Everest

[Lysander666]

Is this a bit like someone saying you shouldn't use fleet carriers? It's not proper exploring!

Four British former special forces soldiers have set a record by climbing Mount Everest in under five days without acclimatising on the mountain, as part of a high-speed expedition controversially aided by xenon gas.

Xenon was used to help them pre-acclimatise to low oxygen at high altitudes. Climbers usually spend between six to eight weeks on Everest before summiting.

Adrian Ballinger, who heads another expedition team climbing Everest from the Chinese side to the north, also makes his clients undergo pre-acclimatisation training like using hypoxic tents to shorten time on the mountains. But he opposes using xenon gas.

"If you're promoting xenon as a performance enhancer, but you're not also willing to examine what that means for fairness and integrity in the mountains, it's a problem," he told the BBC.

"People are grasping at shortcuts instead of doing the real work of acclimatisation and training."

Everest: British soldiers make history with new method

The former special forces troops used xenon gas to acclimatise to climbing at high altitudes more quickly.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Insanity.

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

For some reason the phrase “mad dogs and Englishmen” comes to mind.

 

[Lysander666]

Insanity.

Not really. It's a very relevant parallel. Both are to do with exploring, both relate to new methods of doing things being 'ingenuine'.

It's like saying "engineering is cheating"
or
"Fleet carriers are not proper exploring"
or even
systemd in Linux? That's not real Linux. KISS.

It's all about the old ways being the best ways, and in some cases, the ONLY ways to do things. This is a very common theme in exploration and travel - it doesn't matter if it's on Earth or in space.

"Travel is only glamorous in retrospect... Airplane travel is barbarous. It is as though you have been chopped up into five pieces and stuffed into a small bag. You survive only because it's over so quickly." - Theroux

"We do not take a trip; a trip takes us. … In this automobile age, when we no longer 'travel' but instead are 'carried,' something has gone out of our experience.” - Steinbeck

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour." - RLS

 

[Ozric]

It's a very relevant parallel.

No it isn't. It's closer to saying that walking from one side of a country to the other is the only way to do it. Using a car is ingenuine.

"Fleet carriers are not proper exploring" doesn't make sense as they are for travelling. Using modules you have within your ship that weren't available when the game launched, is a far more relevant conversation to exploring.

I'm really not sure what your point is with this very loosely (read as, un) related news story.

 

[Lysander666]

No it isn't. It's closer to saying that walking from one side of a country to the other is the only way to do it. Using a car is ingenuine.

In my opinion it is. So saying "no it isn't" is just contradiction. My opinion differs from yours on this.

"Fleet carriers are not proper exploring" doesn't make sense as they are for travelling.

Correct, that's my point. See my comments below.

I'm really not sure what your point is with this very loosely (read as, un) related news story.

Honestly it sounds like you are just not good at context.

I'll lay it out for you.

I went to Colonia on a FC from the bubble - and via a DBX. The DBX journey took four months and was true exploration - I saw things along the way, had unique experiences, and felt greater reward specifically because of the time and effort invested. The Fleet Carrier served a different purpose - efficient transportation when the destination was what mattered.

This same principle applies perfectly to real-world travel. Taking a plane to e.g. Panama isn't "exploring" in the purest sense, but it's not trying to be. It's efficiently getting you to Panama so you can explore there. Both approaches have their place.

So the point is - and the question I am addressing in this thread is: is summiting Everest about the journey (traditional acclimatisation) or the destination (getting to the top efficiently) - likewise with going to any far-off star in Elite?

 

[Ozric]

So the point is - and the question I am addressing in this thread is: is summiting Everest about the journey (traditional acclimatisation) or the destination (getting to the top efficiently) - likewise with going to any far-off star in Elite?

Well that's not what you asked

Is summiting Everest about the journey, or the destination? It's an entirely subjective opinion.

To apply that to Exploration in Elite implies that there is one specific location you want to visit and explore. So the question becomes do you want to meander your way there or just go there and go home.

Correct, that's my point.

Then you've answered your own question. No it's not, because Fleet Carriers are just a means of travel and your exploration experience at the destination will be the same regardless of the journey to get there.
If you considered the whole journey to be part of Exploration, then you wouldn't be using a Fleet Carrier in the first place.

 

[Doctor Dread]

I went to Sag A in a Hauler and I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... but that's another story.

 

[aRJay]

...

So the point is - and the question I am addressing in this thread is: is summiting Everest about the journey (traditional acclimatisation) or the destination (getting to the top efficiently) - likewise with going to any far-off star in Elite?

Yes.
To expand. For some getting to the top of Everest is the whole point, for others getting to the top of Everest is part of a journey.

But seeing as it has been a tourist destination for decades it isn’t about exploring anything other than yourself.

If the argon breathing is safe and means the climb is faster then it is probably a good thing as it could reduce queuing.

I went to Sag A in a Hauler and I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... but that's another story.

I explored my way to SagA* via Colonia and back using my FC as a staging post for my Hauler.

 

[Lysander666]

Yes.
To expand. For some getting to the top of Everest is the whole point, for others getting to the top of Everest is part of a journey.

But seeing as it has been a tourist destination for decades it isn’t about exploring anything other than yourself.

If the argon breathing is safe and means the climb is faster then it is probably a good thing as it could reduce queuing.

Indeed, but more than that, when we change the tools - whether it’s argon-assisted climbs or Fleet Carriers - we also reshape what the experience fundamentally is, not just how we feel about it. i.e. how the medium affects (or is) the meaning. The tools redefine the very act and nature of exploration itself.

 

[Doctor Dread]

I explored my way to SagA* via Colonia and back using my FC as a staging post for my Hauler.

But have you seen things you people wouldn't believe?

(like attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, or watched C-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tannhauser gate?)

 

[aRJay]

But have you seen things you people wouldn't believe?

No, some of those people will believe anything.

(like attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, or watched C-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tannhauser gate?)

Attack ships no but T9’s and Cutters were bursting into flames trying to dock on the way to the shoulder of Orion.

 

[marx]

You're not a real explorer if you do / don't do [STUFF].

About the mountain climbing stuff, personally I'd be more worried about what unknown side effects would be caused by using xenon gas and then quickly going down below. But here in Elite, what unusual side effect would fleet carriers have... well, I guess it's that tritium costs credits.

If folks want to go travelling and exploring the classic way, then let's see... no SCO, no supercruise assist, no fleet carriers, no new ships (just what was at launch), no docking anywhere outside the bubble, no Engineering, no FSD booster, no synthesized FSD boosts, no NS / WD boosts, no star filters, no FSS nor DSS, no route plotter (neither in-game nor outside of it), no crowdsourced data. I might have forgotten some additional stuff there.
Me, I'm not going to judge anyone by how they do it, as long as it's not something that would get them banned.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

those gases are not very noble on the body...