Newcomer / Intro I have REALLY screwed up.

Marvin the Martian

Marvin the Martian
OK, so this thing is a time sink. LOL!

On the first mission, I was supposed to go to a base, buy 5 units of Lithium and return it for a money reward. I get to the place and they don't have any. I start Googling and find a site called EDDB and search for Lithium, find a cheap supplier, go back to the game, plot the course, buy it and return it and BOOM! Payday!

So the next mission up, I'm supposed to buy some circuit cloth or something of that nature. I figure I'll just do the same thing. So I find a cheap supplier, plot the course and head out.

I get two jumps into it and get an alert I'm almost out of gas. I stop at the nearest thing to me to refuel and it instantly cancels my license, fails the mission and essentially says, "You're on your own".

I now have no idea what to do. I made it the rest of the way to the base I was heading to and figured I'd ask here to see what my next move should be.

Thanks in advance.
 

ethelred

ethelred
You've left the starter area, and as you've docked outside of it your licence to return has been lost.

What happens next is up to you, really.

You could restart your CMDR and spend some more time in the starter area.

OR.

You could just continue where you are. As soon as you dock at a station, new missions will be available so you could just do those instead.

If you need any help on any other aspect, just ask.

Good hunting CMDR
 

Para Handy

Para Handy
Marvin the Martian said:
OK, so this thing is a time sink. LOL!

........... I stop at the nearest thing to me to refuel and it instantly cancels my license, fails the mission and essentially says, "You're on your own".

I now have no idea what to do. I made it the rest of the way to the base I was heading to and figured I'd ask here to see what my next move should be.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

As already mentioned, you can do a "clear save" (from the main menu on startup) and so continue splashing about in the paddling pool or - just get on with enjoying the game outside the noob zone, taking advantage of the better ships and equipment and much better rewards that are available. Your choice, no correct way to do things here, you can always stay outside and if you find you wish you had stayed in the zone - just "clear save" and start again. (You will soon earn back any credits you already have.)

(I used to do a clear save restart every time my ship got blown up - but with the time it takes to re-qualify for all the "Engineers" I now just take the free sidewinder option on destruction - keeps my insurance claims stats at ZERO. :sneaky: )
 

Esteban

E
The Galaxy* beckons...

You didn't screw up. It was but one mission. The mission-giver won't miss you (alas), or come after you. Read those mission descriptions until you get to know what to expect. This will help you avoid disappointments, now that you're out of the starter area. Welcome!

* not Goal. It's a sandbox.
Do what you will. Ask for help along the way. Don't fly without rebuy.

No one worth worrying about (imo) will judge you if you decide to reset at this early stage (at any point, really) and begin again. It's your game. Play the way you choose to. It's better if you're having fun! \o/

I remember when I got locked out of the starter area. I left accidentally because it wasn't clear to me what markers were used to show systems in the zone. 🤷‍♂️ I had every intention of accepting the "leave the zone" bribe mission that paid 200,000cr (if memory serves).
I was SO disappointed when I missed out on that but...

...not for long.
The rest is (my personal) galactic history, as they say. 200k? What 200k?

This community is generally very good about helping new (and not-new) CMDRs so it's a great place to ask questions. But, if you're truly stuck and you'd like a hand, PM me. We'll meet in-game for some casual Elite fun, timezone permitting. I have helped a number of new CMDRs just upon randomly meeting them in space. One of them, upon seeing me show up in the instance, thought they had no chance of getting away without a rebuy due just to the appearance of my ship, which (s)he called the scariest ever seen. Well-worn-black-paint-job aside :cool: I'm not like that and we're now friends...
 
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Ashnak

Ashnak
With what you write, there's nothing much left for you to do in the starter area/kiddie pool.
What happened was that your first big sale probably gave you a rank in trade - and once you've achieved one rank in any of the (assuming we're talking about Horizons, as you only paid 8 bucks) three professions, your starter area permit is revoked, effective from your next landing outside that area.

As for what you can do - anything. This week's community goals (CGs) are probably a bit challenging at your stage - one is mining, one is collecting guardian artefacts, both are centered on a Megaship currently located 840 ly from Sol - and you won't find any gas stations for the last ~600 of them.

So, what do you want to do? Cargo missions, couriering, combat (players or NPCs), exploration, passenger transport or sightseeing, mining, check out alien ruins, fight aliens (not really recommended - that's endgame stuff for experienced combat pilots)? Or topple governments, change a system's status and mess with its economy? Race your ship (and SRV = planetary buggy) against other players? Join a carrier expedition to the other side of the Galaxy (or go there on your own)? Visit the black hole at the center of the Galaxy? Build your own fleet, maybe ultimately buy a carrier (expensive!)?
 

aRJay

aRJay
Firstly congratulations on graduating from the starter area. Even if it wasn't by design.

Secondly forget about that mission even if you got the stuff you now can't go back to the mission giver to complete it.

As has been mentioned you can reset your save to start over at any time, and to be honest that will be much less painful now than it will in a few years time.

As to what to do, you can try to do anything you fancy just remember to have enough credits to rebuy your ship, consider installing a fuel scoop when you can afford one and keep these guys on speeddial until you do.

Home

The Fuel Rats are Elite: Dangerous's premier emergency refueling service. Fueling the galaxy, one ship at a time, since 3301.
fuelrats.com fuelrats.com
 

Rock Hunter

Rock Hunter
The starter area wasn’t ‘a thing’ when I started out so I didn’t find myself locked out of anywhere. I did find myself blown up by npcs, melting in a star’s exclusion zone until I blew up, crashing onto planet surfaces (until I blew up, usually immediately) and seemingly inexplicably dying (by being blown up) when entering or leaving a station. I reset several times in the initial phase of utter confusion when I had no idea of what was happening.

Resetting/restarting holds no shame but neither does just getting out there and trying to feel your way around in the big wide world galaxy.

The opportunities outside the starter area are far greater in every respect and you’ll have far more scope to try things out due to all of the ships, modules, missions and places available to you. That said, the starter area is there for you to paddle around in until you feel you have a grasp of the most basic elements so make the most of that if you’d prefer - the main difference is that you’ll learn more outside that area due to the opportunities mentioned above.

Pop in to this sub forum whenever you have a question, are confused by something or just want to share your latest experience. The detailed knowledge available here is staggering and I still learn a lot from them after thousands of hours of play. That could just be because I’m incredibly dim though:unsure:

Just don’t give up.
 

0threeleven

0threeleven
What aRJay said, get a fuel scoop. Don't do what I did and get a 1A scoop and take off in to the black on a 30,000Ly trip, get the biggest scoop you can fit and watch a youtube video on how to use it, fuel is free. Also, have you been interdicted yet? Watch out for those guys.

If your an atheist or agnostic, you could commit suicide, never done it my self but it's always an option and get insurance once you start buying, upgrading and engineering ships.
 

Krieger

Krieger
Welcome to the Elite Galaxy commander!

As the others above made clear: the mission was sort of a trap. The game thinks you're ready to enter the wide galaxy and generated a mission that made you leave the starter area. From here on you decide what to do...

Maybe you've already found most of the resources listed below. If not, have a look at them and in any case don't hesitate to ask questions here in the forum.

In-game help is available in the form of menu links to the Pilot's Handbook and the Codex (right-hand cockpit panel 1st tab).
For a very good beginner's guide see: An in-depth beginner’s guide to Elite: Dangerous.
Tutorials covering all aspects of the game, many of them in the form of YouTube videos, are available from ED Tutorials.
There is a wealth of useful information available in these forums spread out over hundreds of threads. Thanks to commander @Alec Turner you can access all of that information and more via a single thread: Alec's best of the forum (and elsewhere) [v2].
Here is a good guide on the background simulation (BGS) that simulates the economical and political changes caused by player actions in inhabited systems.
Also check out the inara.cz and eddb.io websites with (almost) realtime info on practically everything in the game.
The coriolis.io and edsy.org websites let you design your ships before buying them.
There are many more Tools and Websites created by fans that make life in the galaxy better.
And last but not least, the Elite Dangerous Wiki contains extensive information on nearly all aspects of the game.

o7
 

Krieger

Krieger
Para Handy said:
... and everything full of pop-up adverts. (Fandom is very commercialised now, I really hate what they have done with the wiki.)
Click to expand...
I agree. But if you manage to read around the ads it contains a lot of useful info. And it is fairly up to date.
 

rootsrat

Volunteer Moderator
rootsrat
Marvin the Martian said:
OK, so this thing is a time sink. LOL!

On the first mission, I was supposed to go to a base, buy 5 units of Lithium and return it for a money reward. I get to the place and they don't have any. I start Googling and find a site called EDDB and search for Lithium, find a cheap supplier, go back to the game, plot the course, buy it and return it and BOOM! Payday!

So the next mission up, I'm supposed to buy some circuit cloth or something of that nature. I figure I'll just do the same thing. So I find a cheap supplier, plot the course and head out.

I get two jumps into it and get an alert I'm almost out of gas. I stop at the nearest thing to me to refuel and it instantly cancels my license, fails the mission and essentially says, "You're on your own".

I now have no idea what to do. I made it the rest of the way to the base I was heading to and figured I'd ask here to see what my next move should be.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Welcome to Elite Dangerous Commander :)

We have the best community!
 

Marvin the Martian

Marvin the Martian
Well, turns out I messed up a bit worse than I thought so I went ahead and did a hard reset. The license I bought actually came with Elite Dangerous and the Elite Dangerous Horizons. So I started over with the Horizons expansion.

Ran the tutorial, then the first mission where you get 10,000 credits just for going back to where you started from.

Guess what the first thing I did was. Go on, guess.

Bought an additional internal fuel tank.
 
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