You Know That I’m No Good…

~or “Faithless…”

I have a confession to make… I have cheated… on EVE… as Amy Winehouse crooned…

I cheated myself,

like I knew, I would.

I told you I was trouble,

You know, that I’m no good.

I also will confess to having quite the thing for Miss Winehouse’s singing… (before the drugs…) whatta voice.

I have said afore that I am a one game man. By this I mean I only ‘really’ play one MMO. And that MMO is EVE. I do play other games occasionally but they are basically mindless time killers for when I simply don’t have the time to properly devote to EVE or I have a need to, well, mindlessly kill time.

I play Minecraft, an amazing creative world, but I have not ever played on multiplayer servers and don’t plan to. I have been trying to get a MC server running at home for my kids and I, but I haven’t been trying very hard… I also occasionally play Quake Live… but that is the truest form of mindless mental violenceturbation I have ever known. I know no one on the public servers and don’t ever want to. I go there only for storyless, mindless, unadulterated pure PvP.

My (real) gaming began with Doom. I was a FPS player for many years… Oh, I have trialed many other games over those same years, a few, Planetside 2, The Evil Within, Diablo 3, still reside on my hard drive, taking up space, ‘rarely used’… and at some point they will be uninstalled. Very very few games have ever really grabbed my interest, and until EVE not one of the MMOs had… and I tried many if not most of what’s out there. I really did… and either simply could not get into them or downright hated them.

 Until EVE… to say that I was enraptured, enthralled and overwhelmed barely touches on how deeply I was affected when I first undocked in EVE. I have been a SciFi nerd since I was 6 and an IT geek since my mid-twenties. The combination of the 2 in a game as deep, broad and immersive as EVE was what it took for me to finally take the plunge and become an MMO player. That and the wonderful fact that my sons, both Marines at the time, were the ones who brought me in and who I have flown with ever since… well, what can I say? EVE is the shit.  =]

And until now it was the ONLY MMO I actually played… until Saturday the Twenty-Seventh of June in the year of our Lord, Two Thousand and Fifteen that is, because on that auspicious day, I downloaded and installed Elite Dangerous… and THIS is something altogether different.

First I created Cmdr Turamarth Elrandir (Yea!!! I’m still ME!!!) then I ran the undocking practice 4 times, then ran the docking practice 4 times, then I did the supercruise and warping about the place practice 4 times… after that, feeling I could now move about with a modicum of confidence, I logged into the verse. By the time I had landed in a new station at the end of my first foray out, I was sold and I knew from that moment on I was at the very least a two game player.

Gidzenko Ring Station in Chamunda System...  My home in Elite Dangerous

All I’m doing now is the easy, safe, low pay contract hauling stuff (delivery missions)... I’m a Courier. I’m making noob bank, slowly but steadily and I spent a only week in the noob ship, the Sidewinder Mk. I. But just like back when I was a noob in EVE, I’m not trying to get rich, I’m learning the ropes and the ways of this new, FOUR HUNDRED BILLION star system ‘verse I am now a very small small part of.

I’ve been kilt in non-consensual PvP already… once so far on my first day in game, about 3 or so hours in. That was a LOT faster than it happened the first time in EVE. What was I doing? boofing around trying to learn the ropes. I had seen ‘stuff’ in space and was sort of exploring… I was trying to figure out how to open the Cargo Scoop and some 5 or so ships landed in a gang… I saw some smack in ‘local’ like, “Ooooo a snack!” and I was attacked. I tried to run but, well… I’m an EVE vet so it was what it was and I was also curious how death in E:D worked. Still haven’t looked up the mechanics or logic or lore behind it but there I was in my starter station being asked if I wanted the free Sidewinder… yes of course.

I Looked it up, they call it Death Penalty Rules:

“When a commander’s ship receives catastrophic hull damage (breaks apart) or becomes incapable of supporting life, the commander automatically escapes via an ever-present, indestructible escape pod.”

Ahhhh… the old Escape Pod that never fails gambit…

Not an escape POD... Exterior view of the Gidzenko Ring Dock (the ships actually fit inside it! Yeah physics!!)

- The escape pod transports the commander back to the last station that they docked at. - Commanders losing a ship can accrue an excess fee which must be paid straight away.

- Starter ships with starting equipment have no excess fee.

- The excess fee is a percentage of the ship’s total value (including equipment)

And there is no warping out of a lost fight… when it says transports, it actually mean teleports. It’s just like how Scotty the Docking Manager handles docking in EVE… “Poof” and yer outta there. They went to so much trouble to give us realistic ship handling, undocking, docking and an amazing series of Stations (that unlike in EVE make SENSE!!!) and incredibly detailed planets and suns etc., etc … only to fall back on the age old automagically respawn at death thing, my first real disappointment in the game.

Once the ‘excess fee’ has been paid the commander is given a replacement ship and equipment identical to the load out when the ship was docked (the context is that there is an automatic insurance premium applied to all sales)

And again we have a fall back to the old standard gaming “Your stuff is Permanent.” IE no ‘real’ loss, meaning no real ‘consequences’ for actions in the game… meh.

Anyhoo… so I have been playing about 2 weeks now… I have bought the next up hauler hull and been making fairly steady bank. I found a few websites I am getting good use out of… Thrudd's Trading Tools, Elite Dangerous Central and Elite Dangerous Trader. So far I prefer to start with a contract from the Bulletin Board if there’s a decent one up. I look for sourcing ‘tracts (IE go find us ‘X’ Stuff for ‘X’ Credits) and then I research commodities between the 2 stations involved and pad my cargo with goods based on imports and exports at each system and hopefully make some extra bank while filling the ‘tract.

I have upgraded my ship basically all ‘round as a dedicated risk adverse carebear trader. I do have weapons, well A weapon (1 Seeker Missile Rack) and defenses (Point Defense Turret close in missile and mines and Electronic Countermeasures, EWar target lock breaker turret and one step up in hull armor)… I have increased my jump range (no cargo) over twice the noob ships base (empty) range and all other stats are equally as increased.

I wish we could name our ships... bad oversight there Frontier

I have yet to engage in PvP, well intentionally that it, I did get kilt that once and I have been Interdicted (Travel; Pg 73) numerous times with no losses… yet. I’m not sure about Interdiction… as a noob I would assume I am a good (read easy) target and yet I have only been dropped out of warp once and the guy what did it either din’t attack or was not able to for some reason… I immediately FrameShifted back into SuperCruise and docked up safe n sound. I don’t know if it’s my mad piloting skills (I am good at it, nat’ral born flyer I am I am) or if it is a harder mechanic to effectively use than I supposed.

Anyhoo… so that’s what’s been up with old (and new) Tur… he’s still flyin, he’s just flyin different skies for a bit. You may not see me quite as much as I used to be around, but you will still see me in EVE… I have no desire to ever stop flyin our deadly skies. Gotta admit I do like the variety though…  =]

Fly reckless and see you in… which Sky? =/|)=

A little side note… I installed Star Citizen 3 weeks ago… and while the FPS walking around and getting in and out of ships part is pretty sweet… I am still waiting on the rest of the actual GAME before I can say whether or not I will really get ‘into’ that one or not… so far though, not so much.

And lastly… just throwing this on at the end here… There was this one other game I was really nuts about in my 20s though… not a MMO, a kind of FPS… Descent. I was sooo incredibly taken by Descent that I bought the (then brand new) Thrustmaster F16 FLCS HOTAS set… (without the RCS peddles) and damn if Elite doesn’t have me seriously considering going into hock (approx. $400 to 500 US retail FFS) and buying the newest set… the Thrustmaster U.S. Air Force A-10C Attack Aircraft HOTAS set…  O  M  G…  ‘nough said.