Nope. Too many gotchas.

ArcherS

A
So, I figured I'd step from Sharur to Anekaliti to see what was there. I knew that docking at the wrong place would revoke my Pilot's Federation permit, so I checked Anekaliti in the star map. It says "Allegiance: Federation", so I figured I was fine.

Nope, I set down on Bean Terminal. All my old missions get wiped out. No warning that Bean wasn't part of the Federation.

This, combined with other unclarities and hidden rules: Way to drive new players away. Too bad this isn't an offline game. I'd just go back to my last save point.
 

ArcherS

A
Then give them names that are significantly different so new players don't get confused. Or, on the System Info page in the Galaxy, at least say "Superpower Allegiance: Federation" and "Local Allegiance: ...", or whatever the Pilot's Federation is. Ambiguity just drives people away.
 

ArcherS

A
Maggie_Oz said:
One of the keys to success in Elite Dangerous is to be sure to read and understand everything you are presented with.
We see a lot of posts on this forum about problems that stem from not reading something fully
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Except when the information is ambiguous, you don't always realize it's ambiguous, so you think you have read and understood everything.

All it would have taken is a banner popping up when I requested docking at Bean: "Warning: docking here will invalidate your Pilot's Federation permit. I could have immediately cancelled the dock and jumped back.

Just makes me wonder how many other ambiguities I'd run into in the future. Don't think it's worth the risk. Also means my wife won't buy ED so we could team up, which she was considering.
 

Jeff God of Biscuits

J
Honestly, you haven't really lost anything of value... The only thing you have done is stepped out of the wading pool and into the grown ups pool. You can still transfer all the modules and ships you had out to you from there, and now you have the entire Galaxy to roam through. The only real differences between the two areas are that no one with a rank is in the beginner's area, and you will now have access to the full selection of ships and modules, most of which are not available in the starter systems.

You were going to have to leave sometime, right?
 

CMDR Yates

C
You know, I think it's a fair point. It is ambiguous, the Pilot's Federation is meant to be a training wheels area, and assuming you care about staying inside it, then getting accidentally locked out is a much more consequential thing than most of the other common trip-ups in the game (running out of fuel, etc.) because those just kill you and you respawn a few credits down, whereas this means you can never go back.

The closest thing in terms of impact I can think of is crashing your ship way out in the black weeks or months into an exploration trip and losing everything... but that's not an activity of rank beginners. Deep space explorers know what they're getting into.

They'll not change the names Federation and Pilot's Federation. They have a long backstory and history that far predates this game. But they could make it more obvious when you're leaving the cordoned-off area. (I started ED years before the PF area was a thing, so I'm not familiar with what kind of warnings there are)

I wouldn't worry too much, OP. Most of us started off without the training zone at all and manage just fine, but I understand that it's frustrating.

You could reach out to Frontier Support. They might be able to roll your save back for you, but don't quote me on that.
 
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VR StarLightPL

VR StarLightPL
ArcherS said:
Just makes me wonder how many other ambiguities I'd run into in the future. Don't think it's worth the risk. Also means my wife won't buy ED so we could team up, which she was considering.
Click to expand...
that's a really, really weak reason not to buy tbh. There will be plenty of good reasons though, just after 100hrs mark ;-)
 

Jeff God of Biscuits

J
CMDR Yates said:
You know, I think it's a fair point. It is ambiguous, the Pilot's Federation is meant to be a training wheels area, and getting accidentally locked out of the zone is actually a much more consequential thing than most of the other common trip-ups in the game (running out of fuel, etc.) because those just kill you and you respawn a few credits down, whereas this means you can never go back.

The closest thing in terms of impact I can think of is crashing your ship way out in the black weeks or months into an exploration trip and losing everything... but that's not an activity of rank beginners. Deep space explorers know what they're getting into.

They'll not change the names Federation and Pilot's Federation. They have a long backstory and history that far predates this game. But they could make it more obvious when you're leaving the cordoned-off area. (I started ED years before the PF area was a thing, so I'm not familiar with what kind of warnings there are)
Click to expand...


While I do agree that they are similar and it's ambiguous, I disagree that there is a significant impact. After all, with a major crash as you described, you could be losing tens of millions of credits, whereas here, you lose access to an area that you were going to have to leave anyway if you wanted to progress in the game
 

CMDR Yates

C
Jeff God of Biscuits said:
While I do agree that they are similar and it's ambiguous, I disagree that there is a significant impact. After all, with a major crash as you described, you could be losing tens of millions of credits, whereas here, you lose access to an area that you were going to have to leave anyway if you wanted to progress in the game
Click to expand...

Assuming you have a desire to stay inside, for whatever reason, though. I can't think of anything else in Elite where there's literally no way back no matter what you do, and it would be a simple fix to have a warning pop up when you're in the supposedly hand-holding nursery area and about to leave it. A one-off few hours of work that might potentially save a few hours of Support team time per month.

Even if the actual material consequence is low in the long-run, the gravity of the mistake is more-or-less unknown to a beginner, and it might be an unduly off-putting bump-in-the-road right at the outset that it puts more people off than it should.
 
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CMDR Yates

C
Maggie_Oz said:
Is that the case though? I think 1000's of commanders have not made this mistake.
Click to expand...

Every time you see someone post on here about some fsck up they try to blame on FDev, there's probably hundreds or thousands who did the same thing but didn't post about it.

Normally, I'd shrug and think "you died in a game, boo-hoo", but since the very design and concept of the PF area is supposed the be this carefully-planned walled garden with extra railings and padded floors, it sort of goes against the spirit of the design if you can lock yourself out of it too easily. I don't really care, but given the purpose of the area, if I was FDev I'd consider it a design weakness.
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
CMDR Yates said:
I can't think of anything else in Elite where there's literally no way back no matter what you do
Click to expand...
Lots of things - pilot ranks, superpower ranks, system discovery, permits. Sure, there would be little benefit to going back, but the same applies to the beginners area.

Cmdr reset is always an option, OP starting again with their wife would probably be a good thing.

Main issue with the "add a warning" is that people don't read add warnings - as we see all the time in the forums.
 
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