Steam says I hadn't played Elite since May 22. That's about right. It seems i play for a few months each spring, then by the time summer is here I burn out and shelve it for the rest of the year.

Last night I literally dusted off the Cougar and jumped through the hoops to get set up. Getting the stick set back up, Track IR, headset and all. Launching Elite I found I had to do all the account linking again, which didn't go smoothly, and I was troubled to see messages such as "must be done when running Elite for the first time" when it does the shader and planet generation thing. I expected to find my account wiped or something, which would have been the end of it for me!

But it was still there.

I then had trouble restoring my custom bindings .And EDMC needed to be relinked to Frontier account. But after nearly an hour of setting up I found myself back in Poison Whiskey (Krait II with a snazzy paint job I had bought just before shutting down last year). I saw I had mounted an Interdictor, so must have been running some assassinations. I was docked at Miller Terminal in Exioce, which is the best bounty system close to my home system of Dvorsi.

I took the Krait out of the station just to get comfortable again, and flew around scanning wakes for a bit. Then landed, refueled and fixed the integrity, then took off for some bounty hunting in the local RES's. It all came back in short order and I managed to add one percentage point to my combat rank. Last spring I set a goal of combat elite, which would mean triple elite, but I failed miserably since it's just so slow.

Jumping out I checked Inara, and Bo's stuff. Got a Mamba eh? How you like it? I also saw you are 63% Deadly, so very nearly triple elite yourself. I could be wrong, but Wingy is the only one here who I know has hit it (apologies to any others who have). For me, goals are essential in Elite. Without a goal I just lose interest. So I am setting reaching Deadly as my goal. I am at 93% Dangerous, so this should be easy if I play more than a couple of weeks.

I looked at Neph's PG and it's up to 30 pilots! Cool.

I looked at my stats and two things jumped out at me. One is, I have never lost a dime to minions. And two, my lifetime fines total 11,000 credits (in 928 hours). I am one law-abiding space monkey. I've lost five ships, but that I knew. Bank account is 1.2 billion, thanks to core mining. I looked at the credits graph on Inara, and it looks like a sheer cliff face reflecting the two or three days where i clocked 750 million mining.

After that windfall I sold half my fleet, and I am down to seven ships (Krait II, Courier, AspX, DBX, Orca, Python, FDL). One on hand I would like trying out a new ship or two. On the other I have zero desire to engineer another ship from scratch.

Deadly here we come!

D,
Hola, mate! Finally picked up a Mamba after vacillating back n forth for a good long while. What pushed me over to buy it was unlocking the Cytoscrambler power play burst lasers. Perfect fit for the 2 small hard points. Still trying to find a good load out for the 2 large and 1 huge slots. The view outta the cockpit is amazing, rivals the iCourier. Other than that, I’m kinda ambivalent about it. Hard to find a role for it in my fleet.
Hit Elite in xplo a short time back, was surprised since I thought I had another full rank to go. Very glad to be finished with that grind! Now, I’m basically just plugging away at the last bit for Combat. I hang out in CNB’s and CZ’s mostly now. The ‘Vette is the ship of choice for those endeavors, for obvious reasons.

Congrats on double Elite, that's awesome.

Like the Courier you say? Hmm, might have to check it out. Can I take yours for a spin around the block?

I jumped on last night and hunted bounties in the Krait for a couple hours and managed to bump the rank to 96% Dangerous, so nearly there already. Of course it's then a terrible slog to Elite, but what else do I have to do?

I'm right there with you in terms of finding roles for new ships. That's a big part of my hesitation in adding a new one to the fleet. What the hell will I do with it? And with no compelling reason nor role, I have no compelling reason to engineer again. I reckon we need a new round of ships with something unique about them.

It's funny, I bragged about my low fines total, and then added another 201 in fines last night. I was bounty hunting and stopping occasionally to fire off a limpet to collect the good stuff, and somehow I ended up with an illicit limpet. Did my limpet scoop up someone else's limpet? Never saw this. So I got scanned and busted for it, then I flew off a bit and jettisoned it and got a fine for that too. 201 credits! It's a police state I tell ya.

Such a shady character! I never knew you had such a dark side!

I was on a 3-4 month gaming hiatus but I've started coming back (DCS mainly, but I'm working on a living ship in No Man's Sky). I put a little time in on Elite, last I recall I have a Krait MkII, AspEx, Conda, Cutter, Corvette, and Python in my hangar. I do with my Krait what you are doing with yours - combat! It's well suited to it and fun to fly in that role. The Asp is my taxi/exploration ship, the Conda is my hauler/rescue ship, Python is for core mining, Corvette is for combat, and the Cutter is my laser mining boat. I wouldn't know what to do with another ship quite honestly, and Elite isn't really calling back at the moment anyhow.

If it does, I supposed I'll put some explo time in to get the vaunted double Elite and join your ranks. After that, the combat Elite grind I guess. Not sure what else I really would want to do in the game, unless it was to try some Power Play stuff out, that is the only thing I haven't really at least dipped my toe into.

You mean my criminal activity? If you ever wonder what happened to one of your limpets check the log to see if I had been about.

You've all the big three. That's pretty cool. And that you have the rank for both. I am not even close for either, and I'm nearing 1000 hours. How many hours have you played JC, if you don't mind saying. Of course I haven't really pursued superpower rank, but still, I'd think I'd be further along. I'm Viscount and Ensign, so a long way to go. I'd have to get back to taking missions instead of hunting pirates and mats if I wanted to get that moving. But since core mining happened I no longer needed a Cutter, and frankly my time with the Conda showed me I'm a small and medium ship guy really. I haven't flown anything aside from the Courier, Krait and DBX in a long time it seems.

Oh dear he's doing it wrong!

Welcome back DBond and best wishes working on combat ranking. Combat is the toughest rank to make Elite in. Just keep at it. Ranks for Federation and Empire can be a grind as well. Fastest way on those is to run passenger escape missions from damaged stations taking +++ rep missions to the rescue ship which is very close. The rep you get for every run banks.

See you out there

Wingy

I was running rescue missions for a while, and yeah those a good choice for this. If I decide to chase superpower rank again I'll run them for sure. The Orca is good for this. Well just about any ship is, but I like the Orca. Mine runs really cool and I probably don't even need a heatsink, but I fire one off after entering the station as routine.

I somehow ended up with another illicit limpet. Maybe I need to check a setting. Can't I tell my limpets what not to grab?

If the stats on Inara are correct, I have a little over 300 hours in game. I made getting rank to get those big ships a priority, so I ran a ton of rescue missions until I got there. I also cashed in nicely on the Great Void Opal Rush of 3305, so I was able to afford them. Like you, I tend to prefer the smaller ships, but it's nice to have the bigger ones. The Cutter is especially nice, Imperial ships are quite sexy! Not that the 'Vette doesn't look pretty cool, but it seems to be the exception to the Fed line.

Welcome back to ED DBond! 928 hours huh? You made me curious so I checked my codex and I currently have 6 weeks, 4 days, 17 hours and 14 minutes of game time logged.

I’m must be the exception, don’t really find the Imperial aesthetics attractive.

Where are you guys getting the play time and fines stats from? It used to be in the RHS menu but I can't see it. I need the play time from the game itself not from Steam as that won't be my true hours invested in it.

It should be on the Codex under commander/stats.

Found it. Boy,things have changed since I last played it.

4 weeks,3 days,21 hours and 42 minutes,so about 680 hours.

I have received 191 fines totalling 1,639,223 credits.

Of course,if they hadn't changed the exploration mechanics that play time would be over 1,000 hours I'm sure

The codex has a wealth of interesting stats and of course the lore behind the Elite Dangerous universe.

I'm getting my hours played from Steam. I'll have a look at the Codex and see if it agrees.

I have to throw my lot in with JC and confirm Imperial ships are sexy and Fed ships are fugly.

Haha, Chucky's fines total shows how law-avoidingabiding I am. Although I got another illicit limpet yesterday. Gotta work this out.

And just like that, my goal is met. I am now 0% Deadly. I looked at Recluse's Inara stuff and he is even closer to triple Elite. Not far to go at all. I recall reading somewhere that getting from Deadly to Elite takes roughly the same number of ships you killed to get from noob to Deadly. And I was at 2,900+ bounties when reaching Deadly. So this will be a long slog. I doubt I will hit it before burn out. This is a target for next year more reasonably.

So what other goals can I arbitrarily assign myself? Thanks to Inara I have two. I had seen that Wingy and Bo had some spiffy medals on Inara, but there were not lighting up for me. For whatever reason three finally did so yesterday. Most of the medals have requirements I will never hit, like 5000 combat bonds or 1,000 Thargoids. But there is one that I bet few have, and that's the Captain medal that triggers with 5000 passengers transported. Because I spent my formative years mostly running my Interstellar Transport Company I am already 2/3 of the way there. I need to drop off another 1800 or so to qualify. Just a silly medal on Inara, but it gives me a goal. So I promptly ran a couple of transport missions in the Orca and got another 108 safely delivered.

A second thing on Inara that I saw for the first time is a pilot ranking. Both Bo and of course Wingy are well ahead of me. Recluse's doesn't show. I'm the 4,251st ranked pilot on there, though I have no idea what it's based on. I want to be something better than that So that's a goal, and continually renewable.

If anyone here is on Inara I'd like to add you as a friend so send me your commander name if you want. I have JC, Recluse, Wingnuts and Bo on my friend list there. If you are not on Inara, why the hell not?!

Inara

I can guarantee that there will be a discrepancy between Steam hours and in-game codex hours since I believe the codex doesn't count any time you spend in the main menu. I just looked in Steam and it says I have 1,174 hours and according to the ED codex I have 1,121 hours.

Yeah, I'm sure you're right. And 'play time' is a misnomer anyway, as I have many hours idle, with Elite running while I'm cutting the grass or walking the dog or whatever. I'm sure the Codex will be a lower number.

The Imperial ships are indeed nicer looking but I'll take my fully engineered Fed Corvette up against a fully engineered Imperial Cutter any day.

Can't argue with that, unless it's hauling trinkets and doodads, then whatareyagonnado?

I appreciate that folks like the Fed stuff, but then again they're nuts lol. My home is right next door to Achenar, so I gotta play it safe. Don't want them coming down hard on me for abetting the evil Federation.

Ya know, now that I think about it, I have never flown a Fed ship, and the Courier, amazing as it is, is the only Imperial whip I've flown.

Oh no, check that, iEagle too.

That’s what my Type-10 Defender is for! It’s my dedicated mining ship and cargo hauler.

The Fed Corvette is purely configured for combat.