A summary-focus on Demon Eyes Cain’s year in Elite: Dangerous

While it has not been quite a year, in February I will be an active participant in the Elite Universe. My flight time just rolled over to 1,361 hours. That’s 15.54% of my total existence this past year. There are a lot of things you can get away with when you do not have children. 15.54 + 31.96 + 33.33 for sleep = 80.83% and it means I have 19.7% time left for other things! Oh well…

Elite capitalizes on two distinct pillars in my life: space and video games. As far back as I can remember, I have wanted to explore space. Some deeply ingrained urge has driven an interest of the unknown. When I was in Kindergarten, I remember an assignment to choose what you want to be when you grew up to highlight out in the hallway with your photo. I thought Astronaut! without hesitation and have that assignment in storage to this day. For Christmas that year I asked for a spaceman Lego set, and he totally delivered (still have the Legos and a VHS tape of me asking Santa for the gift, I promise I’m not a hoarder). As for the other pillar, let’s just say that I’ve been playing video games as a general hobby since I was 3 years old. Super Mario World and Sonic 2.

If you have a passion for Elite, play. If you’re asking yourself, then you’re not going to be able to do it. So how do I spend 1,361 hours in Elite?

 

The Sale

Early 2016. Having other priorities, I had held off getting an Xbox One for years. My 360 still had it’s job well enough, and I had been drifting away from video games for a while. Fallout 4 and Mass Effect: Andromeda (when it comes out). I found myself with some extra cash at the end of the month, walked to my local gaming distributor, and let them talk me into buying an Xbox One with prospects of the division coming out and wanting to get caught up on the Halo series. It was like bringing home a new puppy. We were both excited and eager to dig into the treasures that this new gaming machine would hold!

My best friend had been telling me of a game coming to PS4 that summer that involved exploring space where you could go anywhere and do anything. He said you could land on any planet and name it. You could allegedly run into someone else’s and share experiences, even if it was unlikely due to the enormous size of this infinite galaxy. I wanted that game. It sounded absolutely perfect for my tastes and would revitalize my love for gaming. There was one major setback: PS4 and PC exclusive. « Bummer, » I thought. I spent a lot of time looking for something comparable on my Xbox.

Eventually, a sale rolled around. A game in the store by the name of Elite: Dangerous was under $ 30. It looked and sounded good by the reviews and descriptions, so I decided to give it a shot. Imagine my surprise booting it up for the first time to see the many options: Training, Start, Game Extras, Arena, etc. I could before I started. I watched the videos and learned to pilot my ship to the best of my abilities at the time.

I wanted to play this game. I went to start and thing open as I wanted to be my central experience. There I was in the starter Sidewinder, completing all the flight control checks and going through all the menus. I took some data delivery missions. Back then there were no NPC faces. It felt like you were taking jobs from an automated computer system. Something about it felt distinctly different from today. I remember thinking « it is so weird how it’s always night around here. » I knew nothing about module ratings. I knew nothing about fuel scoops. These two factors severely limited my mobility early on.

I was going from star to star; Trips of 40LY or more were out of the question. I would haphazardly jump into a system not paying attention and easily fall into a star. My first rebuy screen was met by getting too close to a star too fast and panicking! I’m sure this already happened to you! Right? Right…? My second death was close behind by running out of fuel on a mission delivery mission. It was a very pleasant stay. It involved picking up a package, waiting until a certain time (usually a few hours), and then meeting with a contact to deliver the package. These were usually illegal, and half the time would end up being double crossed. They paid well and the lack of NPC faces made it seem all too surreal. I would wake up in the morning and accept one of these missions, go about my morning business like breakfast, then go the package for a cool ten thousand credits or more. One of my newer friends tells me thesis Were Known As Shadow Deliveries.

Yeah, back then 10,000 credits was a huge deal. I was still in a sidewinder and trying to find my way. I knew I wanted to explore. That was my main goal: fit a ship for exploration and go discover something. I really had no concept of how big this galaxy was at the time or even what explorers actually do. I knew I was not going to do it in a sidewinder. I saved up about sixty or seventy thousand credits and had been doing my online research as many new commanders do. I figured for the price range and applications, the Adder would be my best bet on the next leg of the day. It was in the Adder that I cut my teeth in battle. I armed up and started to actually take on opponents that interdicted me during missions. I went to a few resource extraction sites to bounty hunt a little.

At the time, NPCs were much easier. In my lowly Adder, I felt almost invincible. It was like skill and experience was all that was needed to endure a fight. It did not take long for me to really start raking in the dough. It was funny though: at this time, I still had range of under 100 light years. Just going 40LY on missions seemed like a nearly impossible task. Back to my exploring career, I had decided to save for a Diamondback Explorer. The DBX Seemed like It was the perfect price and versatility for what I wanted. It took a few days of really hitting the mission board with some friendly factions to save the 4 million credits I was going to need for my ship, outfitting, and rebuys.

 

The Trip to Wolf 406

Two weeks in, I decided I was ready to upgrade from my space minivan. I needed to go to Wolf 406. It was 80LY away, a lot more trip than I was used to taking. They had the DBX in stock and offered a 20% discount. More credits for outfitting, yay! I headed out and drudged system after system. One jump out from Wolf 406 I get interdicted. My cocky nature got the best of me when I challenged my first PvP interaction. It lasted a few seconds… In the blink of an eye I was at the rebuy screen and back at the station where I started the journey. I do not remember what commanders name, but it showed me the type of world I was getting ready to live in for a while: Elite: Dangerous.

With a little more caution and experience, I set out again to Wolf 406. I decided to dock two jumps out of my destination to help prevent it again. I was met with no resistance this time and was able to make it to my new ship. Three million credits later I had a ship that could make a 30LY jump faster than you could say « oh my swirls. »! It was like a dream come true. I was so excited, I got the chrome paint job for it (being the only DBX paintjob available at the time). I was very happy with my stay at this hotel, Gateway Hamilton. I had some issues that next morning that prevented me from getting straight on it, but after a hard day of work I was happy to fly it.

Horizons launched. I had remembered reading about it and seeing some interesting screencaps online of 54LY jump ranges, but had completely forgotten about it in my trial for the DBX. I had to have it. As someone who identified as an explorer, I knew how to explore planetary surfaces in an SRV. I did not even consider the implications of the engineers or what was to come later. With horizons came new mission types that paid exponentially higher than other missions types (seems to be a trend with Elite’s economy). I decided to stay out of exploration for a bit to amass a fortune. One popular mission was to disable generators of planet side settlements for upwards of 300,000 credits. Little did I know this was just the start. After a few of these, the now allied faction started handing them out for 2 million credits a pop. They were relatively easy and risk free missions: just take an SRV to one of these minimally guarded settlements and blow up the generator… If you were having trouble, you could watch a video on how to do it. Simple as that. The problem was that it was impossible to complete alone.

It was during this time I put my first two friendly commanders. They were rich miners with Type 7s and fight shores galore. They’re no longer on my friends list. I will explain the loneliness of an explorer a bit later. For now, just know that they were a big help in shaping my career. They gave all kinds of tips and advice here and there. They were perplexed that I had made it without much knowledge of some of the finer workings of the galaxy. I knew nothing of mining, of trade, of combat or outfitting, of ship purpose, factions and reputation, even exploration. We talked of aliens, Obsidian Ant, Radio Sidewinder, Raxxla. It was all good and fun!

I am looking for a high-end scanners, a detailed surface one and an advanced discovery scanner. Even through everything I had learned, I did not have outfitting figured out. I thing this fight build in case I came across any challengers in my expedition (almost a cringe worthy thought now). I had an almost 22LY jump range, which was still better than my previous ships. With 8 million credits to my name, I headed out in a random direction from the bubble. « Discovered by Demon Eyes Cain. » Something permanently etched in the galaxy.

 

The Joke

Let me show you some of my naivety before we proceed. My fiance and I were extremely enthralled in this game with minimal understanding of how a lot of things worked. We had trouble navigating the galaxy map and knew nothing about the games political factions. We have had a lot of time in the space, so many of the systems have gone through the system. Everything from the galaxy and system maps. We thought that meant some order named Zachary Hudson had discovered that system. She said « Man, that Zachary Hudson guy is a jerk, he’s discovered practically everything around here! » We often still reference Zachary Hudson as that jerk that discovered all the starter systems.

 

The First Expedition

I think it was close to 10 or 12 jumps before I found my first unexplored beige rocky ice worlds; Several or them. Their location is lost to me now, would have made for an interesting milestone marker if not for the limited bookmarking system. I dawdled around this area for a while tagging stars and beige planets alike. It was not long before the solitude started to set in. The miners had been contacting me to go some community goals with them, but I was too far out. I already had too much invested to just come back now. This is what the loneliness of exploration becomes. You can not participate with the other commanders, so you can either just chat with them or do your own thing.

• « I do not know, where do you go? »
•  » To the center of the galaxy. Sagittarius A. »
• « Then that’s where I’ll go. »
• « When will you be back? »
• « I do not know. »

So it was decided. I had a vector to follow. I had so many firsts: first discoveries, nebulas, supergiants, dangerous white dwarfs, deadly neutron stars, scary black holes, beautiful earth likes and ammonia worlds, water giants with water and ammonia based life. I made a checklist of known phenomena to explore and discover. As a new explorer there was so much that I had no knowledge of. I had never saved / left Elite while not docked or landed. On the first leg of my journey, I was constantly searching for planets to land on to save my progress. I have no idea where I got this misconception, but it carried on for the first three or four thousand years. I remember having particular difficulty with a 4G supergiant planet. I also had no idea how to properly brake out of witchspace, so I was dropping out too close to almost every black hole and neutron star. Had I brought some AFMUs, this would not be a problem.

Going by some tips online, I made a 6kLY detour to a neutron field to see some wicked stuff. Sag A I think with all the scanning and fuel scooping (from my poorly outfitted 3A fuel scoop), it took me about a month to get to the center. The road plotting slowed down the closer I got, which really cut into travel time. I scanned everything I came across. If you do not know what you’re going to do, then this is the place for you. « Fluffy Kittens is foolish for everything in this system! » Present me laughs at me every now and then. Anyway, Sag A was beautiful. Majestic even. The view is one of the best in the galaxy in my opinion.

 

The Detour to Jaques

I knew of the Jaques from an Obsidian Ant video, but had no idea of what it meant at the time (I had never seen and unknown artifact and had never participated in a community goal). I took off for home from Sag A with a detour perpendicular to my previous path to check out some nebulas near the center. BAM. News hits that Jaques has been discovered only 1000LY from my current location. Why not stop by and see what’s happening? By now, I’ve learned many long distance travel tricks: how to use my navigation panel, how to brake out witchspace.

I could cover 1000LY in under an hour with all kinds of exploration data. I was at Jaques in no time. I was worried I would have forgotten how to dock, but it was not a problem. No facilities were active. Could not repair or turn in data. No biggie. I spent a couple of days in this area tagging a few neutron fields and nearby nebulas in anticipation for future expansion. When I plotted my road home I went through the galaxy map picking things from my checklist to bookmark and visit. I added Wolf Rayets, carbon stars, S class stars, anything I could find.

I estimate my round trip took about 3 months to complete. That’s what it’s all about. I grew a lot to order and an explorer. I gained an interest in the Thargoid mystery and Formidine Rift mystery while out and was anxious to participate on the way back. I sold all my data at Gateway, as I was a bit of an Alliance buff at the time. How much did I get for this 3 month expedition? A cool 70 million, or what I now know a nice start. It was enough to get me in the first 8% of Pathfinder status for the Pilots Federation. I was somewhat disappointed. With that much time investment I was almost sure that I’d get Elite status. That did give me incentive to head out on future expeditions though.

 

What to do now?

I was an explorer that went to Sagittarius A and back with no idea of what to do now. My instinct to self improve in my direction of improving my pilots federation ranks. If I remember correctly, I was a mostly harmless fighter and third rank up on trade. I bought a Python and started bounty hunting and trading. Elite lost a tiny bit of its luster for a short time. NPCs were ten times tougher than before I left the bubble. I had heard horror stories of expert NPCs in small ships shredding experienced commanders.

I thought I would give a player a shot and contacted Iridium Wing in hopes to join. My contact was NT Kingslayer. He was a friendly guy and so was his friend. I was to go to Ki for a fighting audition. PVP was overging in popularity at the time, so that’s what would be geared for. My fight was rusty at best, and my choice of loadout was an informed mess. Kingslayer had me bring my combat fitted DBX to face off in a DBX of his for equal comparison (Python was only an engineered FDL). We went for three rounds of down to 25% hull, and I was whooped all three times. He used a tactic of « silent running » I had never seen before, and something called « flight assist off » It was all flashy and effective. My most effective attacks involved ramming him on accident.

We parted ways and he told me he would be in touch. That was the last I heard from him or had any contact with Iridium Wing. Any attempt to contact them was met with silence. I did not blame them, it’s a ship destroy ship galaxy out there. I just was not up to snuff. Around this time I decided to start doing community goals. There was a bounty hunting CG to help stop crime that I wanted to give a shot. I loaded up my Python and went to the hunt. I am a very interesting fellow that I am still friends with named LT Cupcake. We bounty hunted and hung out for hours. The CG came to an end, I collected my reward, and we parted ways. I went back to trading / doing missions until the coming CG the next week. This CG was a Federation vs Empire War CG, so I hit up Commander LT Cupcake and we headed out towards Maia. We put another cool guy and teamed up to take on conflict zones. This was some of the most fun I ever remember having in Elite. I saw my first capital ship and participated in the typical hijinks a group of commanders can get into. As with all things in time, it ended too.

Still trying to find my way, I had just learned about long range smuggling and biowaste hauling from Robigo, Ceos, and Sothis. For someone willing to put in the time to get allied, these were the absolutely most lucrative professions available. Head to New Dawn Station, load up on biowaste delivery missions, go to Newholm Station, load up on hydrogen fuel delivery missions, then make the five to six hundred year light back into the bubble. You could make 30 or 40 million in 40 minutes round trip with a 200 ton capacity cargo hold. It helped if you had an engineered FSD. You could take a day of netflix and space trucking to become filthy rich. When I headed out on my first expedition, I had 8 million credits and a 2 million credit rebuy. Now I was up to 200 million with a 10 million credit rebuy in my Python. I had a great time.

 

The Anaconda

The big beast of the space seas, the anaconda was my next target. I had the credits, but wanted to pad my wallet a bit more before making that kind of commitment. Once I had 300 million it was time. I bought my Anaconda and what a shock: it was heavy, cumbersome, slow, and I had to duck every time I went through the mail. This Ceos / Sothis, Ceos / Sothis. Missions went through a gimped stage where there were suddenly much fewer available. It would take longer to fill my cargo hold with biowaste and hydrogen fuel to make the trip. I almost never got interdicted and knew how to escape rather easily. Chances of PVP interactions were pretty low, as most pirates and gankers were not up to attacking an Anaconda. This would have been back in July or early August of 2016. I know because 2.2 was announced. We had hints of Thargoids, ship launched fighters, passenger missions, the new unknown probe spectrograph. There was a lot going on. It was suddenly exciting again.

 

The Plan

With the potential alien threat coming, I had to get stronger, better at combat, and more knowledgeable about Elite. I set out to unlock all the engineers and gear up as much as possible. I heard the long range trading missions would no longer be viable, so I. I made my way to Shinrarta Dezhra to make a new home where everything was within my grasp. Once i outfitted my anaconda for combat and bought some 7A thrusters, it was a formidable quick force.

I spent the next few weeks working my way from engineer to engineer, steadily marking modules off my checklist. I had to learn how to properly mine for materials, how to trade rare, and a few other tricks here and there. I worked so hard, but eventually had access to G5 everything. G5 dirty drive thrusters, G5 hull, G5 incendiary overcherged multicannons. It was bliss. I could take anything and go anywhere. I also tried my hand at powerplay and managed to snag some prismatic shields during this time. With all that complete, I was still left with a couple of weeks before the update. I went to the Formidine Rift and searched there for a while. Tried to solve the probe image. Went on a neutron scanning stint. Finally got to Elite in exploration. Things were looking good.

 

2.2 Launch

Here we go. I docked at Shinrarta Dezhra the night before launch so I would be able to get a ship launched fighter first thing when the update hit. Once servers were back online, I booted up and lavished in my new taipan fighter. With a fully engineered ship and taipan fighters, mercenary. I ‘m going to massacre missions to stack. This way I could fill my pocket, grow my combat rank, and shape political tides. I participated in every CG I could get around and bused a few passengers around. When I finally found the crashed alien ships I went and visited them. I hung out at the new alien ruins for a period.

At one of the CGs, I was interdicted by a Lance Fer. He attacked, so I started to unleash the fury of my modified Anaconda. A Corvette quickly jumped in behind us and attacked me, quickly swaying the fight. I was able to take his shields almost completely down. I had only lost one ring of shields, but the thermal shock pack had hounds from the FDL had sapped all my heat sinks. I know I would not win, so I high waked out before they could damage me any further. After some research and experience from this fight, I decided to get a Corvette. A few hundred million in donation missions and massacre missions later, I had access to the most dangerous ship in the game.

I swapped over all my modules and did some engineered and I could not believe the difference. I went from 3666MJ of shields in my Anaconda to 4750MJ in my Corvette. I now had two huge incendiary overloaded multicannons to shred anything. I gained a boost in speed and maneuverability. Even supercruise maneuverability was up. The only drawback was the lower jump range. I went from 29LY fully outfitted in the Anaconda to 18LY fully outfitted and engineered in the Corvette. It would not do for exploration, but it would make cake work of anything else. I continue my mercenary lifestyle, working my way to Deadly and my NPC crew Milo Tores from Harmless to Elite.

So here I am today. I’ve recently returned from a 60kLY round trip expedition out past Hawking’s Gap. I’m working my way from Deadly to Elite as a mercenary and trying to make my way to a cutter for trade. I still make it out to CGs when I can and try to be involved in the community and current happenings as possible. Hoping to head out to Maia and meet some aliens soon.

A lot can happen in a year. Elite has become my favorite game, and I do not see my passion for space dwindling any time soon. I anxiously wait for

• Atmospheric landings
• The commander creator
• Space legs
• Plus whatever Frontier develops for us until then and after

The game is entirely different than it was a year ago. It’s a great place to stay.

 

Hey you, what’s YOUR experience with Elite: Dangerous?