(Most of the stuff in BOLD type is actual instructions. Follow at your own risk).
So here you are. You downloaded Elite Dangerous and are now sitting in the cockpit of a dusty, used Sidewinder, in a hangar somewhere wondering: What to do, what to do . . . What the hell am I supposed to do???
Welcome to the Galaxy, newbie
Elite Dangerous is a game of choices and decisions. As in life, there is no manual to speak of. You will try new things, make mistakes and learn from your mistakes. Your path is guided by your personality, your choices, the goals you set for yourself and the decisions you make to reach those goals.
Here is your ship. Now go out and make your own way in a wide open galaxy. Possibly you will enjoy exploring and admiring vistas nobody else has ever laid eyes on, discovering new worlds and having your name on them as in "First Discovered By CMDR ----". Perhaps you will find gratification in piracy, getting rich through combat and murder (âGyaar, me hearties!â) or bounty hunting, doing exactly the same thing to criminals but legally and getting paid for it; maybe you will prefer trading or smuggling, piling up credits and adding ships to your collection. Then there are the Thargoids . . .
My story:
I first tried to complete all the in-game tutorials. Well, I completed almost all of them. I was not able to achieve victory in the Advanced Combat Tutorial and you probably will not either (at first) but, there is a lot of money to be made in destroying other peopleâs ships so if you do complete the advanced combat tutorial on your first try, you may want to consider a career in bounty hunting or piracy (because strong you are, in the dark side of the force!).
I myself am risk-averse and so decided to start on the relatively safe side, in cargo/data delivery missions and trading. The first thing I did (and you should too) was strip out the HALF-size cargo racks that came with the starter Sidewinder and replace them with FULL-size cargo racks which instantly doubled both my cargo capacity and profits from delivering cargoes.
I spent most of my remaining credits (saving some for fuel) to upgrade the Frame Shift Drive (FSD) module in a further effort to increase the Sidewinders initially anemic jump-range. Knowing that I was not going to win many (any) battles in a Sidewinder I also decided to sell all its weapons which greatly decreased the shipâs mass (guns are heavy) and increased its jump-range as well as put a few more credits in my pocket. Without weapons, I am now the rabbit and rabbits do not fight, rabbits RUN!
Hmmm . . . a message is waiting in the COMMS window. The starter mission! Somebody wants me to take some cargo from here to someplace else. I can do that! My ship is already fully fueled so I accept the cargo; I plot a course toward the mission destination in the Galaxy Map and LAUNCH!
My little ship is raised from safety of the hangar to the docks. I lift off from the landing pad and maneuver her out through the star portâs mail-slot. The slot is HUGE. I am sure I could fly a Sidewinder through the mail-slot sideways. I fly my ship away from the portâs no-fire zone keeping my speed below 100 meters/second per the warning (oops!) from traffic control. I do not want to incur a fine on my first mission, do not have credits to spend on fines. I point my ship at the destination system icon in the HUD, push the throttle up and flip the Hi-wake/Hyperdrive switch.
5-4-3-2-1 BANG! I am on my way, streaking through Witch-space on Hi-wake drive going who-knows-how-fast. Another loud BANG and I exit hyperspace in the destination system, cruising along on the Lo-wake drive. The destination system was ânext-doorâ to my system of origin and now in Lo-wake, or Supercruise drive I point my ship toward the destination star port.
But wait . . . something is grabbing hold of my ship . . . I am being interdicted by a pirate who wants my cargo! We canât allow that now can we, me hearties? [arrrr]
Aw crap. I sold my shipâs weapons back at the star port and cannot shoot back. I am not going to win a fight so what to do? I only have a couple of choices and about 3 seconds in which to make one. I could try to evade the interdiction and play the interdiction mini-game, playing follow-the-circle in the HUD until I either win by breaking free and running away or I lose and get forced into a situation I cannot easily escape from.
I could also submit to the interdiction and try to run away before my assailant brings his or her weapons to bear and destroys my ship. I elect to submit and run.
I set power pips to ENG and SYS (I have no WEPs) and set throttle to 0%. BANG and I am now in normal space and on thrusters, all alone with another CMDR in a more powerful ship than mine who wants my cargo and doesnât care how he gets it. I push the shipâs throttle up to 100% and boost, boost, BOOST away as I watch the FSD cool-down timer. The timer reaches zero, I flip the super-cruise switch and . . .
"Mass-locked? What do you mean MASS-LOCKED??"
Aw, crap on a cracker again. I forgot to set a Hi-Wake destination when I entered the system and cannot Hi-wake away, taking advantage of the Hi-Wake driveâs increased ability to escape a mass-lock and now I am stuck here, boosting for my life, trying to gain enough distance from my opponent to break the mass-lock the higher mass of his ship has placed on my own as my ship absorbs punishment from his weapons. But my range is ever-so-slowly increasing. His larger, more massive ship is just a bit slower than mine and the Frame Shift Drive is ever-so-slowly winding up.
Come on, come on! I continue to BOOST as my opponentâs weapons hammer on my little ship, her hull integrity percentage is falling faster than the FSD is spooling up but suddenly the mass-lock is broken, my FSD quickly gains power and 5-4-3-2-1 BANG! My little ship re-enters Supercruise as alarms flash and damage reports scroll down the systems panel.
Itâs time to run for the border! I point my ship at the destination station and punch it! As the LS timer in the HUD reaches 7 seconds I reduce speed to 75%, not wanting to overshoot the station with a pirate on my tail. Heâs still back there, I know it. I can feel it. Thankfully the âSAFE TO DISENGAGEâ indicator lights up in my HUD, I disengage the Lo-Wake drive and luckily I pop out of Super-cruise right in front of and only about 8 kilometers from the star portâs mail-slot.
It is so close and yet, so far away.
Screw a speeding fine! I boost toward the mail-slot, ignoring the warnings from traffic control about my speed as I frantically request a docking clearance. Clearance is given and I sprint for the mail-slot as I hear another ship pop out of Supercruise right behind me and âIâm going to MELT you!â rings out from the COMMS system but now I am inside the stationâs no-fire zone and can I see the portâs local security ships streaking past me in the opposite direction, hot on the heels of the pirate who is now running away screaming âThis is not the end!â into the communications system. As my ship limps through the mail-slot I can hear the muffled âboomâ of a pirate ship exploding out in the lonely dark.
My battered and scarred ship descends slowly onto its landing pad and drops into the hangar. As the cargo from my first mission is discharged and credits are deposited into my account, I decide it is time to name my ship. I grab a can of paint, climb out of my now trusty Sidewinder, grab a ladder (careful, low gravity!) and carefully paint in large, capital letters on her dirty, dirty prow:
WOUND TOO TIGHT
[alien] Good luck, out there in the dark and allow me to be one of the first to call you . . . CMDR. o7
So here you are. You downloaded Elite Dangerous and are now sitting in the cockpit of a dusty, used Sidewinder, in a hangar somewhere wondering: What to do, what to do . . . What the hell am I supposed to do???
Welcome to the Galaxy, newbie Elite Dangerous is a game of choices and decisions. As in life, there is no manual to speak of. You will try new things, make mistakes and learn from your mistakes. Your path is guided by your personality, your choices, the goals you set for yourself and the decisions you make to reach those goals.
Here is your ship. Now go out and make your own way in a wide open galaxy. Possibly you will enjoy exploring and admiring vistas nobody else has ever laid eyes on, discovering new worlds and having your name on them as in "First Discovered By CMDR ----". Perhaps you will find gratification in piracy, getting rich through combat and murder (âGyaar, me hearties!â) or bounty hunting, doing exactly the same thing to criminals but legally and getting paid for it; maybe you will prefer trading or smuggling, piling up credits and adding ships to your collection. Then there are the Thargoids . . .
My story:
I first tried to complete all the in-game tutorials. Well, I completed almost all of them. I was not able to achieve victory in the Advanced Combat Tutorial and you probably will not either (at first) but, there is a lot of money to be made in destroying other peopleâs ships so if you do complete the advanced combat tutorial on your first try, you may want to consider a career in bounty hunting or piracy (because strong you are, in the dark side of the force!).I myself am risk-averse and so decided to start on the relatively safe side, in cargo/data delivery missions and trading. The first thing I did (and you should too) was strip out the HALF-size cargo racks that came with the starter Sidewinder and replace them with FULL-size cargo racks which instantly doubled both my cargo capacity and profits from delivering cargoes.
I spent most of my remaining credits (saving some for fuel) to upgrade the Frame Shift Drive (FSD) module in a further effort to increase the Sidewinders initially anemic jump-range. Knowing that I was not going to win many (any) battles in a Sidewinder I also decided to sell all its weapons which greatly decreased the shipâs mass (guns are heavy) and increased its jump-range as well as put a few more credits in my pocket. Without weapons, I am now the rabbit and rabbits do not fight, rabbits RUN!
Hmmm . . . a message is waiting in the COMMS window. The starter mission! Somebody wants me to take some cargo from here to someplace else. I can do that! My ship is already fully fueled so I accept the cargo; I plot a course toward the mission destination in the Galaxy Map and LAUNCH!
My little ship is raised from safety of the hangar to the docks. I lift off from the landing pad and maneuver her out through the star portâs mail-slot. The slot is HUGE. I am sure I could fly a Sidewinder through the mail-slot sideways. I fly my ship away from the portâs no-fire zone keeping my speed below 100 meters/second per the warning (oops!) from traffic control. I do not want to incur a fine on my first mission, do not have credits to spend on fines. I point my ship at the destination system icon in the HUD, push the throttle up and flip the Hi-wake/Hyperdrive switch.
5-4-3-2-1 BANG! I am on my way, streaking through Witch-space on Hi-wake drive going who-knows-how-fast. Another loud BANG and I exit hyperspace in the destination system, cruising along on the Lo-wake drive. The destination system was ânext-doorâ to my system of origin and now in Lo-wake, or Supercruise drive I point my ship toward the destination star port.
But wait . . . something is grabbing hold of my ship . . . I am being interdicted by a pirate who wants my cargo! We canât allow that now can we, me hearties? [arrrr]
Aw crap. I sold my shipâs weapons back at the star port and cannot shoot back. I am not going to win a fight so what to do? I only have a couple of choices and about 3 seconds in which to make one. I could try to evade the interdiction and play the interdiction mini-game, playing follow-the-circle in the HUD until I either win by breaking free and running away or I lose and get forced into a situation I cannot easily escape from.
I could also submit to the interdiction and try to run away before my assailant brings his or her weapons to bear and destroys my ship. I elect to submit and run.
I set power pips to ENG and SYS (I have no WEPs) and set throttle to 0%. BANG and I am now in normal space and on thrusters, all alone with another CMDR in a more powerful ship than mine who wants my cargo and doesnât care how he gets it. I push the shipâs throttle up to 100% and boost, boost, BOOST away as I watch the FSD cool-down timer. The timer reaches zero, I flip the super-cruise switch and . . .
"Mass-locked? What do you mean MASS-LOCKED??"
Aw, crap on a cracker again. I forgot to set a Hi-Wake destination when I entered the system and cannot Hi-wake away, taking advantage of the Hi-Wake driveâs increased ability to escape a mass-lock and now I am stuck here, boosting for my life, trying to gain enough distance from my opponent to break the mass-lock the higher mass of his ship has placed on my own as my ship absorbs punishment from his weapons. But my range is ever-so-slowly increasing. His larger, more massive ship is just a bit slower than mine and the Frame Shift Drive is ever-so-slowly winding up.
Come on, come on! I continue to BOOST as my opponentâs weapons hammer on my little ship, her hull integrity percentage is falling faster than the FSD is spooling up but suddenly the mass-lock is broken, my FSD quickly gains power and 5-4-3-2-1 BANG! My little ship re-enters Supercruise as alarms flash and damage reports scroll down the systems panel.
Itâs time to run for the border! I point my ship at the destination station and punch it! As the LS timer in the HUD reaches 7 seconds I reduce speed to 75%, not wanting to overshoot the station with a pirate on my tail. Heâs still back there, I know it. I can feel it. Thankfully the âSAFE TO DISENGAGEâ indicator lights up in my HUD, I disengage the Lo-Wake drive and luckily I pop out of Super-cruise right in front of and only about 8 kilometers from the star portâs mail-slot.
It is so close and yet, so far away.
Screw a speeding fine! I boost toward the mail-slot, ignoring the warnings from traffic control about my speed as I frantically request a docking clearance. Clearance is given and I sprint for the mail-slot as I hear another ship pop out of Supercruise right behind me and âIâm going to MELT you!â rings out from the COMMS system but now I am inside the stationâs no-fire zone and can I see the portâs local security ships streaking past me in the opposite direction, hot on the heels of the pirate who is now running away screaming âThis is not the end!â into the communications system. As my ship limps through the mail-slot I can hear the muffled âboomâ of a pirate ship exploding out in the lonely dark.
My battered and scarred ship descends slowly onto its landing pad and drops into the hangar. As the cargo from my first mission is discharged and credits are deposited into my account, I decide it is time to name my ship. I grab a can of paint, climb out of my now trusty Sidewinder, grab a ladder (careful, low gravity!) and carefully paint in large, capital letters on her dirty, dirty prow:
WOUND TOO TIGHT
[alien] Good luck, out there in the dark and allow me to be one of the first to call you . . . CMDR. o7
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. Nice story though
The DBX earned enough in scans from 'exploration' over a 1400Ly trip to buy the Asp-X. But it was starting again with previous knowledge..