Thanks to all of you who have posted advice on this forum, especially the gamers with the YouTube videos. All of it helped me get off the landing pad and into space. 
I picked this game up a week or so ago. I've enjoyed the space game genre starting with IW and going all the way up to X3:AP and KSP. Elite, however, was just not working for me. I tried to sit down and set some time aside for it. I set up the controls, went through the tutorials as best I could, and loaded into the solo-game proper. I flew around a bit, but for some reason I had a heck of a time finding missions that were actually available for me to take. So I just took some time to enjoy the views. However, I just wasn't being sucked into the game's world.
Long story short I plodded forward, determined to figure something out. Last evening, I landed at a small outpost offering a mission to pick up transmissions for 12k credits. That was a tidy sum and it was actually available for me to try. I accepted it left the station. Once on site, I was interdicted by an NPC before having a short and ungraceful fight, during which he jumped out. I eventually found the transmissions, was harangued by some Federation folks, and returned back to my little outpost to turn in the information.
Then, as I tucked my cramped, now slightly beat up, Sidewinder into that tiny station (a veritable cocoon of safety, compared to my ship, against the vastness of space) I thought, "that was fun, let's do another."
See you around, as soon as I work up the courage to go into the open world that is.
I picked this game up a week or so ago. I've enjoyed the space game genre starting with IW and going all the way up to X3:AP and KSP. Elite, however, was just not working for me. I tried to sit down and set some time aside for it. I set up the controls, went through the tutorials as best I could, and loaded into the solo-game proper. I flew around a bit, but for some reason I had a heck of a time finding missions that were actually available for me to take. So I just took some time to enjoy the views. However, I just wasn't being sucked into the game's world.
Long story short I plodded forward, determined to figure something out. Last evening, I landed at a small outpost offering a mission to pick up transmissions for 12k credits. That was a tidy sum and it was actually available for me to try. I accepted it left the station. Once on site, I was interdicted by an NPC before having a short and ungraceful fight, during which he jumped out. I eventually found the transmissions, was harangued by some Federation folks, and returned back to my little outpost to turn in the information.
Then, as I tucked my cramped, now slightly beat up, Sidewinder into that tiny station (a veritable cocoon of safety, compared to my ship, against the vastness of space) I thought, "that was fun, let's do another."
See you around, as soon as I work up the courage to go into the open world that is.