I am a casual player. I play about once a week for 4 hours, a few weeks I have played twice. It's about to get less since work and life will be busier.
I can't say I have had the same experience. I have been playing since December and I just got a Cobra (and going from Adder to Cobra took me very little time). It took me this long because getting a new ship was not and hasn't been my goal. I have been trading, and exploring and lingering looking at planets, and stations. I think the concept of a required progression, from ship to ship until you get to the biggest or the fastest is actually a trap. Especially so if you don't have much time. You 'grind' through trading in order to get this big ship and then what ? Either you're bored until the next patch comes around (This is why the new ships are expensive), or you're frustrated because you can't reach your goal. If the big ships is what you have set as your goal in this open universe, then you either need to recognize that it will take time or understand that that won't work for you.
I am avoiding pretty much all combat because I use a keyboard and not a joystick or HOTAS. I don't want to spend the real money for those and spending the time practicing fighting doesn't turn me on. So I don't take combat missions and I don't bounty hunt. Consequently, I am not unhappy that I am at Mostly Harmless for combat and one of my ships doesn't have any weapons at all.
It seems like you want the big expensive ships but you only want to but a short amount of time into getting them. (building skills takes time too, understanding where the best deals are and how to trade, bounty hunt, explore, mine profitably takes time). I don't think you can have it both ways. If a person who plays a game for 4 hrs a week can get an Anaconda is X weeks, then a person who plays 32 hrs a week can get it in X/8 weeks. Rather than look for a progression as if it were a career path or a game with a fixed end, I get much more enjoyment out of the environment of the game itself. And if life gets busy or I get tired, I go away and then I come back after a while. That's what the original game and Oolite, the open source verison of Elite was like, and that was my expectation with this game. If you haven't already tried Oolite, you really should. It's single player, so you can go at your pace. It has a ton of mods, so you can make it as tough or easy as you want. It's pretty hackable, I gave myself credits by editing pref files so I could fly any ship I wanted whenever I wanted to. And it's 100% free. http://www.oolite.org/
Also consider signing up to have beta access, then you can fly all the ships during the beta test for 100 credit each.
I can't say I have had the same experience. I have been playing since December and I just got a Cobra (and going from Adder to Cobra took me very little time). It took me this long because getting a new ship was not and hasn't been my goal. I have been trading, and exploring and lingering looking at planets, and stations. I think the concept of a required progression, from ship to ship until you get to the biggest or the fastest is actually a trap. Especially so if you don't have much time. You 'grind' through trading in order to get this big ship and then what ? Either you're bored until the next patch comes around (This is why the new ships are expensive), or you're frustrated because you can't reach your goal. If the big ships is what you have set as your goal in this open universe, then you either need to recognize that it will take time or understand that that won't work for you.
I am avoiding pretty much all combat because I use a keyboard and not a joystick or HOTAS. I don't want to spend the real money for those and spending the time practicing fighting doesn't turn me on. So I don't take combat missions and I don't bounty hunt. Consequently, I am not unhappy that I am at Mostly Harmless for combat and one of my ships doesn't have any weapons at all.
It seems like you want the big expensive ships but you only want to but a short amount of time into getting them. (building skills takes time too, understanding where the best deals are and how to trade, bounty hunt, explore, mine profitably takes time). I don't think you can have it both ways. If a person who plays a game for 4 hrs a week can get an Anaconda is X weeks, then a person who plays 32 hrs a week can get it in X/8 weeks. Rather than look for a progression as if it were a career path or a game with a fixed end, I get much more enjoyment out of the environment of the game itself. And if life gets busy or I get tired, I go away and then I come back after a while. That's what the original game and Oolite, the open source verison of Elite was like, and that was my expectation with this game. If you haven't already tried Oolite, you really should. It's single player, so you can go at your pace. It has a ton of mods, so you can make it as tough or easy as you want. It's pretty hackable, I gave myself credits by editing pref files so I could fly any ship I wanted whenever I wanted to. And it's 100% free. http://www.oolite.org/
Also consider signing up to have beta access, then you can fly all the ships during the beta test for 100 credit each.