It wouldn't be unfair to say I never gave Elite: Dangerous a fair shot, that I was holding over for the release of Star Citizen, or that I was among those who were pretty quick to dismiss Frontier for their questionable practices with the release and their initial decision to not give backers Steam keys.
It was because of those things I kind of just dismissed Elite. "Mile wide, inch deep" was my decree when describing the game. But thanks to Powerplay, I've finally, finally fell in love with Elite: Dangerous, and it feels like I've more than gotten my money's worth while playing. The thing that finally sold me on it?
Interdictions.
I've been a bounty hunter by trade, so I used to hang out in RES's, trying to scrape together a pittance to keep me going. After RES's started being significantly less profitable than they were before, I started to venture out and see what I might pull from the powers that be.
To keep a long story short, I aligned with Princess Lavigny-Duval and started see how I could assist with the power. Finding that shipping corruption reports just wasn't all that excited, I started to look for ways to undermine powers, and shipped myself off to Federal territory.
I'd never interdicted anyone before. I was a more lazy bounty hunter back then, letting my prey come to me in Resource Extraction sites. But that first time I pulled a Federal Courier out of Supercruise? Pure bliss.
It's the excitement of trying to reel in a really big fish, if you suddenly had to fist fight the fish the moment he got up on the pier. To come screaming out of Supercruise spinning wildly out of control while my hardpoints deploy and locking on to the target is an experience like no other. It just feels so visceral to hear the creaking of the hull as it complains against the abuse, the loud thud as you drop out of Supercruise and your hull dips a bit more... I cannot get enough of it.
I've since moved onto doing assassination contracts for a local power, so that the targets I pull out have a bit more fight to them, but this is what I'm likely to do for a good, long time. So thank you, Powerplay update, for introducing me to Interdiction.
If you hear a loud cackling over the comms while the ship interdicting you spins out of control, my pilot isn't laughing at you. She just enjoys it.
