March Elite lifestyle

For pretty much the entire month of March Elite Dangerous is the only game I’ve been playing, and I’ve had heaps of fun 🙂

Also picked up a new Logitech G610, my first mechanical keyboard!
I’ve always refused to pay out for a decent keyboard in the past; but thought now as I can touch type (ish) & I’ve resisted upgrading my existing box, why not treat myself 🙂
Loving it so for, no issues, and find the scroll volume dial a great useful option.

& we have fibre, no longer part of the internet third World, 200 Mbps down, but only 20 up.
I’ve requested an upgrade to 1Ghz but still waiting, but it’s changed my digital life… although not had the chance to try out Street Fighter and Overwatch on the PS4 as yet to see if it improves my game play.

So Elite, I was out running Sothis Ceos passenger missions in my Clipper after the Beyond Chapter One update, pretty much the groove I’ve been in for a while. Not doing too bad for credits per hour, and inching up my Federation ranking with the aim one day of picking up a Corvette.

Then I heard of the Oxley Skimmer mission Gold rush, and thought I’d take a look. The server was grinding for me, but I managed to head over to the system, increase my local rank, and run enough missions to increase my bank account by a couple of million credits. Stink that I was away camping in the days that followed, when I returned a patch had been placed, temporarily removing all skimmer missions.

So I didn’t make the multi billions of some players, but I couldn’t complain, I’d earned in a couple of laggy hours that would have taken me 10 hours on my current route… so what was I to do with all of this cash?

First I tried pimping out my Clipper, but the shields just weren’t strong enough to keep me for long enough in a Combat Zone. To try and remedy this I worked with a couple of engineers, but this still wasn’t enough… and why did I leave engineering so long?

Then a bright idea crossed my mind; I could buy other ships, rather than saving for the elusive Corvette. Having tried a Python once before, but it wasn’t A rated so it was quite sluggish, thought why not give it another try. So now kitted out in a A class Python, with some cool Farseer engineering. As a test flight I went out to the Pratchett Disk, and then cruised around the edge of the bubble, with pleasant 20 light year jumps. I ran in to no problems, and enjoyed the experience, but then I fitted 5 First Class passenger pods, and went back to running Sothis Ceos, contented making more money than I could with the Clipper, but still a little restless.

Wanting to see what the Python was like in battle I kitted it out with engineered Beams and Multi Cannons. This was enough to fend off attackers on my luxury cruise route, but I had the idea that I could do better, and I still had a pot of cash to spend 🙂

So a Fer-de-Lance was added to my star port garage, just in time for the last Ross 310 CG. Kitted out with engineered A rated modules I had heaps of fun in the combat zones, although questioning my logic of buying an FDL rather than the new battle orientated Chieftain… next purchase maybe 🙂

Once I’d reached the top 50% I’d grown tired of continuous battle and fancied another change. Before picking up the Clipper I’d been flying an Asp, iirc before the Explorer version was available. As I was working on unlocking Engineers, and my Python sojourn had kindled my desire for exploring again, I decided to rise up to Engineer Palin’s invite of travelling beyond 5,000 light years from the starting system.

First I was humbled to see that I hadn’t gone this far in the 2 years I’ve been playing the game, I’d not even gone over a thousand! But this time I had an engineered Asp Explorer that could jump 50 light years at a time, and I’d found the awesome option within the Galaxy map to limit the path to only stars that I could refuel from!

Now I didn’t need to lug about excessive fuel tanks, and now the fear of running out of fuel was abated; let the journey commence 🙂

There is a asteroid station just over 5k light years out, in system Omega Sector VE-Q b5-15 which made a perfect target. After modding my usual bubble touring setup to include a couple of auto repairs and chaff launchers… learning later that the reloads of both can be engineered, as can oxygen refill. It’s like this game doesn’t want you to die, and is encouraging you to explore 😉

So off I set, scanning each system, nearly every star, and heaps of planets. Only crashed into one star on the was out close to my destination. No issues on the way back, except I burned 2 of my chaffs in error when I should have been scanning.

The idea was then to head back, swap ships for my Python, and then acquire 25 fragmented sensors to fully unlock Palin, before turning in my cartography finds. I was really in 2 minds if this would be of great benefit, as I didn’t want to lose my finds; not due to ~5 million credits, but there were so many first discoveries, and I want the name of CMDR BADKITTY to be read long after I stop playing the game.

However the 22 light year jump range of my Python made the decision for me, and I removed the auto repair and chaff modules, lightening up my ship and giving me a little luggage space and auto dock… did I mention I had cartography data I didn’t want to lose 🙂

So off I set to find sensor fragments, and I’d been tipped off on a location HIP 17403, planet A4, coordinates -34.98 / -141.41.

This is where things got really cool, heading into the system I was pulled out of inter-system hyperdrive journey by 2 Thargoids. My ship shut down and they scanned me, only for it to power back up after they had found nothing of interest. I didn’t have a wake scanner on board to inspect all that they had left… but I’m interested in why they wouldn’t have attacked and destroyed me… guess they’re not so aggressive?

Arrive at the targeted planet I found a signal to not that the planet had a Thargoid crash site, and I headed down to the surface. I could find approximately where I needed to be from the coordinates, but couldn’t find an actual site. I figured out that if I stuck to the cardinal compass points only one of the long / lat cordinates would change, but I was buggered if I could find the place. I resorted to landing and making an epic trip into and across a crater to a location that I swear I’d checked out from the air.

I blasted the Thargoid scanners to retrieve the required fragments, taking one full scanner; until I started taking hanger damage, so I dropped it. Now I know I can buy a protected hanger from Palin to pick these up. I called back my ship and blasted back into space, one jump to meet Palin, hand over the 25 sensor fragments, sell him my cartography, and see what upgrades are available.

This is where I left off last night, searching for more class 5 materials to finish off my G5 FSD, now wondering what to do next; unlock another engineer, run passenger missions to acquire more materials, pick up a Chieftain or max out and iCourier?

Think this wall of text shows how much I’m still loving the game, certainly now I’ve found I can watch Youtube / Netflix while flying around, and there’s so much more to uncover… I really should unpack my PS4 🙂

Fly safe CMDRS 07