Help wanted for a fresh-off-the-farm Alt re. Guardians

[griffrawk]

Here's an interesting dilemma. I have this, er, Alt.. right.., and he's fresh from shooting womp-rats on the farm. On his travels he comes across a 'Guardian Tech Broker' for the first time. He likes tech, what's not to like?, so he looks into it further.

Hmmm what's a Guardian? What are all these strange materials? 'Pattern Delta Obelisk Data'?

Now, the boy has had a sheltered upbringing and a limited knowledge of the galaxy, and only reads Galnet when there's a Y in the month. He's seen nothing lately about the Guardians (whoever they are!). Wait, aren't they a faction over in Dvorsi?

So, here's the question. How does my wet-behind-the-ears spacer find out more? He doesn't do Forums (strange etheric voices with more madness than sense), he doesn't do external sources (communications from other planes his mother warned him against), he hasn't any friends to ask. All he has to go on is the information he can pick up in his immediate neigbourhood (in-game only). Well, he's prepared to travel at least.

By now you'll gather that I'm interested in finding the missing link between the many very well thought out clues in-game. Does my boy have to travel among the stars on the offchance he just stumbles across some info, and that he's smart enough to piece it together?

Unacceptable answers time. Please no suggestions that he:

• Just go to Felice in Meene and pick up the Ram Tah bla bla. "Ram Tah? I thought that was a place' he says. What points him to Meene other than randomly arriving there?
• Just go to the Listening Post in ***. What points him to the Listening Post other than randomly arriving there? This one I know is more likely. I have found a few this way myself, but my alt must learn the hard way.
• Just go to the Canonn website. "What's a website? Izzat what my mother warned me about?".
• Just go to the Galnet Archive at... "Can I read it in my cockpit?". The lack of Galnet Archive in-game disturbs me. If you don't see the info at the right time you may miss it for a long time to come.

You may have gathered by now that I have a bit of a disappointment with the way things are story-linked in-game. Well, that's as maybe but that Cutter has sailed personally for me and I use a great deal of out-of-game resources now. However, there will always be new people to the game who, for whatever reason (so don't try and make an exhaustive list of rebuttals), will not or cannot read around the 'subject'. For them, the missing links may be the reason why they leave the game.

I have every faith that this planned codex will help. For the sake of my Alt I hope so.

Lastly, I've no intention of starting a major row with this. Please take it in good faith.

 

[Thatchinho]

Here's an interesting dilemma. I have this, er, Alt.. right.., and he's fresh from shooting womp-rats on the farm. On his travels he comes across a 'Guardian Tech Broker' for the first time. He likes tech, what's not to like?, so he looks into it further.

Hmmm what's a Guardian? What are all these strange materials? 'Pattern Delta Obelisk Data'?

Now, the boy has had a sheltered upbringing and a limited knowledge of the galaxy, and only reads Galnet when there's a Y in the month. He's seen nothing lately about the Guardians (whoever they are!). Wait, aren't they a faction over in Dvorsi?

So, here's the question. How does my wet-behind-the-ears spacer find out more? He doesn't do Forums (strange etheric voices with more madness than sense), he doesn't do external sources (communications from other planes his mother warned him against), he hasn't any friends to ask. All he has to go on is the information he can pick up in his immediate neigbourhood (in-game only). Well, he's prepared to travel at least.

By now you'll gather that I'm interested in finding the missing link between the many very well thought out clues in-game. Does my boy have to travel among the stars on the offchance he just stumbles across some info, and that he's smart enough to piece it together?

Unacceptable answers time. Please no suggestions that he:

• Just go to Felice in Meene and pick up the Ram Tah bla bla. "Ram Tah? I thought that was a place' he says. What points him to Meene other than randomly arriving there?
• Just go to the Listening Post in ***. What points him to the Listening Post other than randomly arriving there? This one I know is more likely. I have found a few this way myself, but my alt must learn the hard way.
• Just go to the Canonn website. "What's a website? Izzat what my mother warned me about?".
• Just go to the Galnet Archive at... "Can I read it in my cockpit?". The lack of Galnet Archive in-game disturbs me. If you don't see the info at the right time you may miss it for a long time to come.

You may have gathered by now that I have a bit of a disappointment with the way things are story-linked in-game. Well, that's as maybe but that Cutter has sailed personally for me and I use a great deal of out-of-game resources now. However, there will always be new people to the game who, for whatever reason (so don't try and make an exhaustive list of rebuttals), will not or cannot read around the 'subject'. For them, the missing links may be the reason why they leave the game.

I have every faith that this planned codex will help. For the sake of my Alt I hope so.

Lastly, I've no intention of starting a major row with this. Please take it in good faith.

Not trying to detract from the point your making, but he could just ask some other cmdrs in-game.

 

[griffrawk]

Not trying to detract from the point your making, but he could just ask some other cmdrs in-game.

Good point well made. However without wanting to labour the isolation any more, let's say he plays in Solo, or has had a bad gank PTSD. I know I'm artificially raising barriers, but let's cover every evenutality eh?

The alt will try your suggestion though as he does play in a PG.

 

[Thatchinho]

Good point well made. However without wanting to labour the isolation any more, let's say he plays in Solo, or has had a bad gank PTSD. I know I'm artificially raising barriers, but let's cover every evenutality eh?

The alt will try your suggestion though as he does play in a PG.

And I wish the alt the best of success.

And if it helps to know, I was playing for a good four months (IIRC) before even becoming aware of the forums, and even then it was limited to one or two threads (Formidine Rift, then Canonn Megathread) for a long time. Not using out-of-game guides and info in my early days has helped me hugely in the long term I would say. (Full disclosure though, I'd played the original Elite a lot, and had also played FE2, so did come pre-prepared on some fronts.)

Anyway... I would encourage the alt to try and work things out, and ask other cmdrs first, but if ultimately that's unfruitful, then reach for their trusty datapad / activate their cerebral implant and have a look on the galactic net.

Ok, technically that involves going out-of-game but I rationalise it as follows:

- Would there be an equivalent of the internet in the game-universe? - yes.
- Is it reasonable of me to expect FD to create that in-game? - no.
- Am I therefore happy to treat some out-of-game things as though they're part of the game-universe? - yes.

Some of it I also treat as illicit information routes within the game-universe. Our ships systems aren't going to give us access to anything the Pilots Federation doesn't want us to have access to, so we would have to find alternative means.

None of that's to say that I don't think it should be improved in-game though, just to be clear.

A searchable Galnet archive would make a big difference, as would a general lore primer, and a 'what's happened recently' primer for new pilots.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the codex is going to bring that will help on this front.

 

[Patau82]

Working through the engineers will lead you to ram tah, which brings you pretty close to his guardian missions (same system wrong station)

Some of the tip off missions you randomly get lead to crashed ships with UAs

Both close but not quite! Will see if i can think of any others!

 

[Thatchinho]

Just to add, there's the civilisations filter on the Galmap. That does kind of rely on the cmdr having spotted that it's there though. Not sure checking to see if there's any relevant filters in the Galmap would be something that sprang to mind if you didn't already know it was there.

 

[griffrawk]

Just to add, there's the civilisations filter on the Galmap. That does kind of rely on the cmdr having spotted that it's there though. Not sure checking to see if there's any relevant filters in the Galmap would be something that sprang to mind if you didn't already know it was there.

Thanks. I know it's there (I am 4800 hours in after all), but the 'alt' (which by now you will have guessed is me with the blinkers on) may not have. I will 'mention it' ;-)

I think the root of the problem is the lack of search / archive in Galnet in-game. So things get publicised, and theres the rush, but for the latecomer not much. That's when the frustration sets in and it is easier to then follow the out-of-game suggestions given by others than persevere.

For instance, when they first appeared I noted down the locations of the Eagle-Eye stations, because I knew that within a few weeks they'd drop off the end of Galnet. I have since followed them up, and while not using them to hunt Goids, found that some other goodies usually appeared alongside like UCBs, so not all is lost!

 

[griffrawk]

And I wish the alt the best of success.

And if it helps to know, I was playing for a good four months (IIRC) before even becoming aware of the forums, and even then it was limited to one or two threads (Formidine Rift, then Canonn Megathread) for a long time. Not using out-of-game guides and info in my early days has helped me hugely in the long term I would say. (Full disclosure though, I'd played the original Elite a lot, and had also played FE2, so did come pre-prepared on some fronts.)

Anyway... I would encourage the alt to try and work things out, and ask other cmdrs first, but if ultimately that's unfruitful, then reach for their trusty datapad / activate their cerebral implant and have a look on the galactic net.

Ok, technically that involves going out-of-game but I rationalise it as follows:

- Would there be an equivalent of the internet in the game-universe? - yes.
- Is it reasonable of me to expect FD to create that in-game? - no.
- Am I therefore happy to treat some out-of-game things as though they're part of the game-universe? - yes.

Some of it I also treat as illicit information routes within the game-universe. Our ships systems aren't going to give us access to anything the Pilots Federation doesn't want us to have access to, so we would have to find alternative means.

None of that's to say that I don't think it should be improved in-game though, just to be clear.

A searchable Galnet archive would make a big difference, as would a general lore primer, and a 'what's happened recently' primer for new pilots.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the codex is going to bring that will help on this front.

Thanks. I've also used similar rationalisations.