tl;dr Well I enjoyed myself.
As far as I can work out I first installed the Elite Dangerous Beta on the 21st September 2014. I'm not sure if there are any Commanders out there who weren't born when I started playing ED, but it won't be too long.
As you can see - today I achieved one million light years, and a bit. The stats were updating one jump behind so I could have got about 1,000,002 ly on the screenshot, but what's 82 ly out of a million.
This was achieved in about 3631 hours of gameplay which is approximately 5.68% of my time on Earth since installing ED. But then I used to commute for 8% of my life per year so not so bad.
I realize there are a whole bunch of Commanders out there with way more light years and time in the game than me, but it's still a pretty cool achievement.
So where have I been. Well I can thoroughly recommend EDDiscovery and EDSM as fun third party tools. This is my EDDiscovery map.
The blue lines are where I forgot to turn on "verbose" messaging after an upgrade. So, who remembers what that means? Yes, back in the bad old days before FDev decided to be helpful, the only way to get the data out of ED was to effectively to turn on a debug mode in the parameter settings by using the "verbose" parameter for messaging. This meant that ED spat out a whole load more info into the logfile about where you were etc. that EDDiscovey then parsed and used. The problem was that after each upgrade it reset the messaging parameter and if you forgot to set it back then you lost all the travel data until you remembered to turn it back on. Of course that doesn't happen these days.
Highlights in the map above are Distant Worlds 1, Distant Worlds 2, Beagle Point twice, Sag A* twice, Colonia, and a whole bunch of wandering around. I have visited (with their Galactic Mapping Project names) the furthest reachable North - OEVASY SG-Y D0 (Semotus Beacon & Salomé's Reach), West - SPHIESI HX-L D7-0 (Erikson's Star), South - LYED YJ-I D9-0 (Amundsen's Star), and 6 jumps ago, East - OOD FLEAU ZJ-I D9-0 (Magellan's Star) stars.
There has always been contented, and not so contented, Commanders on the forums, but although there are problems with Odyssey, there have been many problems over the years which have been fixed and the game has changed out of all recognition since I started playing.
So for a "kids of today, you don't know how lucky you are" trip down memory lane, this is some of the things I remember (and I could be wrong) so please feel free to correct me or add your own highlights.
When ED launched you couldn't change core modules. The ship came with a fixed FSD, Power Plant etc. and I think all the other modules only came in one version, no class A, B etc., although that could be wrong. So the jump range you started with was all you got. I remember trying not to take missions in a Hauler that required so much cargo I wouldn't be able to jump to the target star.
Money was SO tight! Rewards for missions were in the 100s or 1000s of credits and exploration paid a pittance. I remember you could buy 2 or 3 tons of rare minerals every now and again and then later on find a mission requiring say 8 tons for a few easy credits. On DW1 having scanned thousands of systems I earned 135 million credits. On DW2 a couple of years later with somewhat more generous exploration payouts I earned 5.5 billion! I'm pretty sure a new player now could simply scan their way to millions of credits just by flying around the starter zone. Do you know how long it took me to get a decent ship!
I can't remember if you could own multiple ships at first, I'm pretty sure you couldn't. Also when multi ownership started you couldn't ferry ships. So if you wanted to move 2 ships to your current location you had to move the first one, buy a throwaway ship and travel to the second ship, swap to the second ship and sell the throwaway ship then travel back. Otherwise you ended up with junky ships all over the place.
There was also the great Asp and especially Python crisis. A rebalancing of the ships occurred and the Asp lost a Class 6 (maybe 5) Optional Internal bay which made it much less of a useful trader, but the Python had it's maneuverability severely nerfed, which had been exceptional up that point making it the "go to" ship. I can tell you there was much wailing on the forums about that!
The "Stutters" - following an upgrade to planet appearance, flying past planets became an extremely jumpy experience. Again much wailing on the forum boards and this is why you get that whole planet shader thing on startup so that you get to keep all those lovely fps.
Synthesis - according to EDSM I have 12699 out of a possible 18750 materials. When Synthesis was added you could carry 300 materials - IN TOTAL! There were no limits on each material but if you wanted to have a balanced loadout you had to plan ahead. Also initially you only got 1 mat for each one you picked up instead of 3. For DW1 in 2016 I had a spreadsheet for FSD boosts, SRV repairs, etc.
Engineering - when engineering was first added not only did you have the problem of hardly any materials storage, the upgrades also required "cargo" components. Not a big deal if you are upgrading a Python, but to do a Viper you would have to put in cargo holds and could only carry enough cargo for a very limited number of upgrades. Also there was none of these Materials Traders, you had to find the right stuff which could be next to impossible for some class 5 components.
"Alternative" styles of play. At one point there was a hobby in Open of shooting people inside stations as they came in to dock. So fines were instituted and upgraded and the station internal armaments improved. However one enterprising individual then found a niche in the internal geometry where the station armaments couldn't reach and resumed their hobby until that was upgraded away. So then people started ramming inside stations instead, so speed limits were introduced and fines etc. for causing damage by ramming. Ho hum. Another blast from the past - Thargoid sensor bombing. This was where you sold loads of Thargoid sensors at a station until it fell apart from the internal damage and closed for business. Gosh how we laughed, especially if it was the target for a community goal. So then you had opposing crews delivering sensors to damage and meta alloys to repair. I guess all stations are "Thargoid Sensor proof" these days.
The Black. There is no Black any more. When I first travelled to Beagle Point the only stations were in the bubble and if you broke anything you were 65000 light years away from a repair station. I don't think repair limpets existed at that point either so hull and canopy damage were for keeps. These days you can't move in the galaxy without falling over a station or fleet carrier. Where's thrill (and terror) of knowing you have to nurse a ship that's currently held together with gaffer tape and cable ties for another 40000 ly before you can sell your exploration data?
Route planner. I think the route planner did 200 ly at first. However as you couldn't upgrade or engineer your FSD it was still a bunch of jumps. It then went to 2000 and then 20000. At one time if you were in the galactic center where the stars are a few ly apart it used to get confused on the last few jumps because there were so many options and it would take forever. You had to pick a target that was at a distance that was as close to an exact multiple of your jump range as possible to get it to work.
Communities. It was a honour to be part of DW1 and DW2. So many people coming together in friendship and cooperation to so something meaningful in the game. This video says far more than I ever could:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8A3qsSi_Yc
Operation IDA. Having returned from DW2 I thought I'd join the war against the Thargoids. Then I thought that perhaps I'd repair space stations instead. It was shortly after that I met the Operation IDA crew who really do move mountains. A finer and more entertaining group of Commanders it would be hard to meet. A huge shout out to the team and once I travel the 44000 ly back to the bubble I'll be helping out again.
ED has always been known for it's near vertical learning curve and lack of a shallow end in the pool. However when I started at least you could see the top of the curve and I was introduced to all the new complexity in handy bite sized chunks as the game was upgraded. Starting new today the complexity of the game and what you can do in it must all be a bit overwhelming. Yes - a lot of the game mechanisms have been improved and refined out of all recognition, but still there are a LOT of them!
So for the old timers I hope this bought back a few fond memories, and also gave some insight as to how much worse it could be for the newer Commanders out there.
I have had a great time over the last 7 years and have no intention of rage quitting any time soon so hopefully see you out there in the sort of dark grey.
PIRS.
As far as I can work out I first installed the Elite Dangerous Beta on the 21st September 2014. I'm not sure if there are any Commanders out there who weren't born when I started playing ED, but it won't be too long.
As you can see - today I achieved one million light years, and a bit. The stats were updating one jump behind so I could have got about 1,000,002 ly on the screenshot, but what's 82 ly out of a million.
This was achieved in about 3631 hours of gameplay which is approximately 5.68% of my time on Earth since installing ED. But then I used to commute for 8% of my life per year so not so bad.
I realize there are a whole bunch of Commanders out there with way more light years and time in the game than me, but it's still a pretty cool achievement.
So where have I been. Well I can thoroughly recommend EDDiscovery and EDSM as fun third party tools. This is my EDDiscovery map.
The blue lines are where I forgot to turn on "verbose" messaging after an upgrade. So, who remembers what that means? Yes, back in the bad old days before FDev decided to be helpful, the only way to get the data out of ED was to effectively to turn on a debug mode in the parameter settings by using the "verbose" parameter for messaging. This meant that ED spat out a whole load more info into the logfile about where you were etc. that EDDiscovey then parsed and used. The problem was that after each upgrade it reset the messaging parameter and if you forgot to set it back then you lost all the travel data until you remembered to turn it back on. Of course that doesn't happen these days.
Highlights in the map above are Distant Worlds 1, Distant Worlds 2, Beagle Point twice, Sag A* twice, Colonia, and a whole bunch of wandering around. I have visited (with their Galactic Mapping Project names) the furthest reachable North - OEVASY SG-Y D0 (Semotus Beacon & Salomé's Reach), West - SPHIESI HX-L D7-0 (Erikson's Star), South - LYED YJ-I D9-0 (Amundsen's Star), and 6 jumps ago, East - OOD FLEAU ZJ-I D9-0 (Magellan's Star) stars.
There has always been contented, and not so contented, Commanders on the forums, but although there are problems with Odyssey, there have been many problems over the years which have been fixed and the game has changed out of all recognition since I started playing.
So for a "kids of today, you don't know how lucky you are" trip down memory lane, this is some of the things I remember (and I could be wrong) so please feel free to correct me or add your own highlights.
When ED launched you couldn't change core modules. The ship came with a fixed FSD, Power Plant etc. and I think all the other modules only came in one version, no class A, B etc., although that could be wrong. So the jump range you started with was all you got. I remember trying not to take missions in a Hauler that required so much cargo I wouldn't be able to jump to the target star.
Money was SO tight! Rewards for missions were in the 100s or 1000s of credits and exploration paid a pittance. I remember you could buy 2 or 3 tons of rare minerals every now and again and then later on find a mission requiring say 8 tons for a few easy credits. On DW1 having scanned thousands of systems I earned 135 million credits. On DW2 a couple of years later with somewhat more generous exploration payouts I earned 5.5 billion! I'm pretty sure a new player now could simply scan their way to millions of credits just by flying around the starter zone. Do you know how long it took me to get a decent ship!
I can't remember if you could own multiple ships at first, I'm pretty sure you couldn't. Also when multi ownership started you couldn't ferry ships. So if you wanted to move 2 ships to your current location you had to move the first one, buy a throwaway ship and travel to the second ship, swap to the second ship and sell the throwaway ship then travel back. Otherwise you ended up with junky ships all over the place.
There was also the great Asp and especially Python crisis. A rebalancing of the ships occurred and the Asp lost a Class 6 (maybe 5) Optional Internal bay which made it much less of a useful trader, but the Python had it's maneuverability severely nerfed, which had been exceptional up that point making it the "go to" ship. I can tell you there was much wailing on the forums about that!
The "Stutters" - following an upgrade to planet appearance, flying past planets became an extremely jumpy experience. Again much wailing on the forum boards and this is why you get that whole planet shader thing on startup so that you get to keep all those lovely fps.
Synthesis - according to EDSM I have 12699 out of a possible 18750 materials. When Synthesis was added you could carry 300 materials - IN TOTAL! There were no limits on each material but if you wanted to have a balanced loadout you had to plan ahead. Also initially you only got 1 mat for each one you picked up instead of 3. For DW1 in 2016 I had a spreadsheet for FSD boosts, SRV repairs, etc.
Engineering - when engineering was first added not only did you have the problem of hardly any materials storage, the upgrades also required "cargo" components. Not a big deal if you are upgrading a Python, but to do a Viper you would have to put in cargo holds and could only carry enough cargo for a very limited number of upgrades. Also there was none of these Materials Traders, you had to find the right stuff which could be next to impossible for some class 5 components.
"Alternative" styles of play. At one point there was a hobby in Open of shooting people inside stations as they came in to dock. So fines were instituted and upgraded and the station internal armaments improved. However one enterprising individual then found a niche in the internal geometry where the station armaments couldn't reach and resumed their hobby until that was upgraded away. So then people started ramming inside stations instead, so speed limits were introduced and fines etc. for causing damage by ramming. Ho hum. Another blast from the past - Thargoid sensor bombing. This was where you sold loads of Thargoid sensors at a station until it fell apart from the internal damage and closed for business. Gosh how we laughed, especially if it was the target for a community goal. So then you had opposing crews delivering sensors to damage and meta alloys to repair. I guess all stations are "Thargoid Sensor proof" these days.
The Black. There is no Black any more. When I first travelled to Beagle Point the only stations were in the bubble and if you broke anything you were 65000 light years away from a repair station. I don't think repair limpets existed at that point either so hull and canopy damage were for keeps. These days you can't move in the galaxy without falling over a station or fleet carrier. Where's thrill (and terror) of knowing you have to nurse a ship that's currently held together with gaffer tape and cable ties for another 40000 ly before you can sell your exploration data?
Route planner. I think the route planner did 200 ly at first. However as you couldn't upgrade or engineer your FSD it was still a bunch of jumps. It then went to 2000 and then 20000. At one time if you were in the galactic center where the stars are a few ly apart it used to get confused on the last few jumps because there were so many options and it would take forever. You had to pick a target that was at a distance that was as close to an exact multiple of your jump range as possible to get it to work.
Communities. It was a honour to be part of DW1 and DW2. So many people coming together in friendship and cooperation to so something meaningful in the game. This video says far more than I ever could:
Operation IDA. Having returned from DW2 I thought I'd join the war against the Thargoids. Then I thought that perhaps I'd repair space stations instead. It was shortly after that I met the Operation IDA crew who really do move mountains. A finer and more entertaining group of Commanders it would be hard to meet. A huge shout out to the team and once I travel the 44000 ly back to the bubble I'll be helping out again.
ED has always been known for it's near vertical learning curve and lack of a shallow end in the pool. However when I started at least you could see the top of the curve and I was introduced to all the new complexity in handy bite sized chunks as the game was upgraded. Starting new today the complexity of the game and what you can do in it must all be a bit overwhelming. Yes - a lot of the game mechanisms have been improved and refined out of all recognition, but still there are a LOT of them!
So for the old timers I hope this bought back a few fond memories, and also gave some insight as to how much worse it could be for the newer Commanders out there.
I have had a great time over the last 7 years and have no intention of rage quitting any time soon so hopefully see you out there in the sort of dark grey.
PIRS.
S
