From riches to rags - a cautionary tale

zipline

zipline
Long(ish) post from complete newbie with genuine question at end.

After many weeks of exploring at the edge of the bubble to build up finances, I entered into this weekend with my shiny new AspX, half a million credits to cover the rebuy and more than 2 million credits worth of cartographic data stored away.

On top of that, during the prior week I had completed my mining & SRV studies and even managed to fit in a sneaky few training runs.

What was on my mind as I entered the weekend was engineering. I'd picked up various materials from USS's during my travels but now needed some raw mats, so was off to land on a few planets and scour for mats.

I was in GaGu system which had a number of landable planets with potential surface mats so off I went. Things were going pretty well, I was finding & scooping stuff and was feeling pretty pleased with myself. Then I ran into some kind of data point with a sentry hovering over it. I scanned the data point and thought it would be fun to shoot the sentry ... my first mistake.

I could see a transaction saying 300CR bounty, and being a newbie who hadn't studied E:D crime and punishment, I actually thought that money would be paid to me!

I launched from the planet and noticed a red wanted status, so realising that bounty was on my head, I quickly hoofed it back to nearest station to hold up my hands and pay my dues ... no sir ... no option to pay.

So, I thoughtvto myself "It's only 300CR and I'll be a long way from this system soon, so it will eventually expire ... my second mistake.

I launched off to begin my journey and in came my better half with an urgent chore, so being a PS4 player, I hit the options button to pause the game whilst I did my chore ... that was my last mistake.

I returned after about 5 minutes to "your ship has been destroyed" ... after many expletives I bought back my ship and resurfaced in a prison colony. Almost all of my credits were gone with the buyback and all my cartographic data was gone. Over 2.5 million credits, and worst, I still had wanted status and did not have anything close to buyback funds so have to fly without. I was spitting angry with just about everyone & everything.

So after google, I find there is a base nearby where I can get rid of the wanted status by paying off legal costs. I jump there in 1, pay off my dues and now am back to grinding the black (without rebuy) for some more funds to get back on track ... but deffo not picking up even 1 item of cargo as steering through a load of interdictions is more than my nerves can take.

My question? On PS4, is the options button not a pause button? I have used that countless times during play to meddle with my bindings, take loo breaks, make coffee, etc. Never has anything happened to my ship ... but this time it did.

Oh, one more question ... what is happening to me? Since buying E:D I have no life, all other games are gathering dust, I spend every evening studying ship loadouts, mining, engineering, etc, my friends look at me worried when I excitedly tell them of my exploits ... tnis coming Christmas could be a complete E:D fest ... I need help!
 

Stabby_Dave

Stabby_Dave
I feel your pain.

Afaik, the only way to pause is to quit to the menu. I’m on pc, so can’t guarantee that it’s the same on consoles.

Did you keep your original sidey? If so, can you not fly that about to make enough for the rebuy?
 

RymdLazer

RymdLazer
There is no pause. Online games seldom have. Honest mistake if one plays solo. Log out.
Sorry you learned the hard way.
 

disorganise

disorganise
There is no pause. Cannot be in a multi-player environment. Always exit to main menu/quit game when you go AFK.

As to the last part.... Yeah, you tell me and we'll both know :)
 

Ethaidan

Ethaidan
Ya, what they said. There is no pause.

On the bright side, the PS4 community can be very helpful. I'd be happy to help you earn back some of your lost credits, one wing delivery mission or haz res hunting, net you a few easy million.

Of course, then I'll own you, but we can work out the minutia of that at a later date.
 

Tifu

Tifu
As a general rule of thumb, have 3 rebuys worth of credits at hand in case the worst happens. And a good & cheaper multi-role secondary ship in the hangar (Cobra 3 or Viper 4) as backup.

Bad days do happen, glad yours didn't permanently discourage you :)
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
We all had to go through this at some point. Lesson learned, I think. :)

You can feel lucky that you actually had money for the rebuy, otherwise you'd be sitting in a brand new Sidewinder with nothing to show for it. ;)

And to answer your last question - yeah. You can either choose Elite or life, mate. They are mutually exclusive. :D :D
 

zipline

zipline
Stabby_Dave said:
I feel your pain.

Afaik, the only way to pause is to quit to the menu. I’m on pc, so can’t guarantee that it’s the same on consoles.

Did you keep your original sidey? If so, can you not fly that about to make enough for the rebuy?
Click to expand...

Nope, I traded it in on the way to my AspX ... I'll just have too tip-toe through the black for some data and suppress my stupid side until I can trade it in!
 

MottiKhan

MottiKhan
Years ago, my first death came when "pausing" the game. I learned my lesson on that one. Luckily, I was in my freewinder.

Sorry that it happened to you in an actual ship with data to lose.

You'll get it back though.

Yeah, the game can be addicting for a while.
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
MottiKhan said:
Years ago, my first death came when "pausing" the game. I learned my lesson on that one. Luckily, I was in my freewinder.

Sorry that it happened to you in an actual ship with data to lose.

You'll get it back though.

Yeah, the game can be addicting for a while.
Click to expand...

"For a while"
Yeah, right. What is a life span of a human in compariosn to the universe... :D
 

Patrick_68000

Patrick_68000
zipline said:
Oh, one more question ... what is happening to me? Since buying E:D I have no life, all other games are gathering dust, I spend every evening studying ship loadouts, mining, engineering, etc, my friends look at me worried when I excitedly tell them of my exploits ... tnis coming Christmas could be a complete E:D fest ... I need help!
Click to expand...

At this rhythm, in a few months, the real planet earth will be a distant memory for you.

Maybe take a real pause for a few days ?
 

Winterwalker

Winterwalker
zipline said:
Nope, I traded it in on the way to my AspX ... I'll just have too tip-toe through the black for some data and suppress my stupid side until I can trade it in!
Click to expand...

Good plan. There's generally a way out if you apply yourself and really watch your back.

Just a thought, or food for it; If you're exploring to make money back, you could maybe do that in a Sidewinder? You might not travel huge distances but you'll be able to explore just as many systems, just as quickly and the rebuy - should you have any accidents - will be far less devastating. It's just a thought.

Good luck Commander! o7
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
Ah, almost all the ingredients for disaster in one post; limited funds, exploration data, C&P and "pausing" the game.

The last one, in particular, is something that FDev could make the effort to address fairly easily.

Would it be that hard to set it up so that, perhaps for the first 10 hours of play, the game displayed a message saying "WARNING: The game is NOT paused while you access this menu"?

I recall, as a newbie, hitting "Escape" to "pause" the game fairly often until I noticed, in the background, a station was still spinning while I thought the game was "paused".
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
This story is weird - never heard of being able to leave prison still wanted - the whole point of the prison trip is to make sure you pay off your debt to society.

And 'out exploring for weeks' and '2M in cartographics', that's a very small amount of explo data ...

Anyway OP - read up on C&P and Interstellar Factors in particular, and maybe try a smaller ship for now ;)
 

Ephraim Stone

Ephraim Stone
Hey OP

That really sucks; the game has a pretty steep learning curve.

Fortunately 2mil isn't that much money.

To get you back on track maybe try and wing up with someone more experienced on ps4, and do some trade missions. Would get your credits ba K in about an hour.

I'm on Xbox so can't help, but I'm sure if you ask on the forum someone can.

o7

ES
 
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