I'm active on the Frontier boards, and read a lot of posts. I see a constant stream of players posting about how they screwed up, and then are often given the advice to send a ticket in so that Frontier can restore what they lost. Now, of course sometimes there are mitigating circumstances, some glitch or bug in the game that caused it. But the vast majority of the cases are players that simply messed up, or didn't understand how things work.

"I flew shieldless on a 50,000 light year trip and lost all my exploration data! "

They send in a ticket, FDev feels sorry for them (or whatever, probably just good customer relations) and erases the mistake.

This bothers me. Not sure what that says about me, but I think consequences are something to be suffered, not waved away because someone's got their knickers in a twist because they fouled up.

I've got 1,500 hours in this game, and I've lost five ships. It's something I focus on, I hate losing ships even if I could afford a million rebuys. I never even considered asking the devs to fix it for me.

No never asked them to fix anythng, I didn't even know it was a thing you could do

Not that I needed to in any case, I've always played Elite Dangerous as though all consequences were "real", as such I've never died, never lost a ship. I don't play all games that way, but for some reason I do with ED.

I read of a fix you can do yourself if you get stuck on a planet in a SRV and can't get back to your ship, where you reboot the game into vanilla mode, and you get placed back into your ship because of course there are no SRVs in vanilla. Then you can reboot again and you're back to normal. I don't know if this is still a relevant fix though since they made Horizons vanilla, is the whole game unified now?

My launcher still lets me choose between the two modes, and you are correct, that does work. I used it once when I got my SRV stuck on some rocks and couldn't get off. It works perfectly to get you back in your ship. But I think we will eventually lose this ability.

There's a thread right now about a commander who says he crashed in to a planet halfway to Beagle Point when his cat jumped on his keyboard and is lamenting the loss of all that data. Send in a ticket, everyone says.

You approach it same as me, DM. Play like it's really your life on the line. And accept the consequences when you foul up. If the program causes it, then OK, I have no problem with that. But if it's you (or your cat), suck it up buttercup.

The hammer hits the nail perfectly! CONSEQUENCES and ACCOUNTABILITY!! Traits, behaviors and moral courage our culture has misplaced lately.

Play the game and own your mistake. If it hurts you'll remember it.

I haven't lost many ships in Elite, maybe a handful, but I've killed hundreds, if not a thousand human players.

I'm a bad man.


Begging Frontier to give you your stuff back is pretty sad. The game mechanics are designed around a player having a more thoughtful approach to things.

Spot on Blast!

Maybe I should have written the OP a little differently, because after reading that it's unlikely anyone will raise their hand.

But yeah, looks like we are all in agreement here.

I have the Eve Online mentality - ships are disposable, don't fly what you can't afford to lose.
That said, unless something happened on the server side I wouldn't ask FD to fix my error.

Not trying to give some detailed analysis of modern day society here but it seems to me that many players are simply wanting a consequence-free environment and the developer in this case is aiding and abetting that.

From the developer's perspective though it could just simply be purely financial. They don't want to possibly alienate players and have them quit the game entirely.

It's true, because I imagine some players would just quit having lost a lot of whatever they lost. That's usually threatened in their posts, and on the Frontier boards anyway followed by a 'can I haz your stuff'. So if you retain them with a quick restore of their foul-up no skin off your back and you keep the players-in-game counts high.


I'll expound upon the first post and now it reads

"I flew shieldless on a 50,000 light year trip and lost all my exploration data. This game sucks. Uninstalling this POS"

Or something like that. It's a representative statement lol.

I would never ask to be honest. I've had reason to contact FD support a few times and they really were the most helpful bunch of people.

I will say though that I was most aggrieved when I lost my first ship. I didn't want it on my record, spoiling it. However over the years I got used to it but it still annoys me. One of my worst ship losses was called 'death by docking computer' where I activated it once inside the station (I needed to be in quick, some slaves had smuggled their way onboard somehow). Well the DC dragged me along the inside wall and I seemingly couldn't get control back in my panic.

I've never used SCA or DC. If I buy a ship that has them installed they are the first thing to go. But if I lost a ship because of module error? , I would be unhappy.

Matter of fact, 'spacemanship' is one of my favorite parts of Elite. General flight and what I call portside operations. Taking off, exiting the station, returning and landing is something I have always enjoyed in Elite. So while I don't begrudge these things for other commanders, I know I'll not use them. And after reading Chucky's post, sounds like that's an even better decision if those things cause you to crash now and again.

Aside from not wanting to relinquish manual control, I don't like the notion of using up a slot that could have been used for a different, more mission-focused alternative. Just my take on it.

I can still recall each ship loss. And only one of them has come in the last couple of years, a Courier lost to ludicrous-speed collision while I was bounty hunting with Bo.

I've lost two Eagles, a Vulture, a T-9 and the Courier.

The Eagles were early days. Unengineered and in my noob hands they were just waiting to be destroyed. The Vulture had the canopy shot away, and I ran out of oxygen before reaching the station. Either this was before you could synthesize it, or before I knew you could.

I don't recall exactly how I lost the T-9, as my mind has closed over the memory. But I was interdicted and wrote at the time that I had chosen the only course of action that could lead to my destruction, and it did. I hate the T-9 and disparage it at every opportunity. I sold it immediately after hitting rebuy.

And the Courier. Bo and I were bounty hunting in dual Couriers, and as I do with this ship I was flying it wide open full-time. That's pretty fast, and I collided head-on with a NPC named Andrew Knox. I've been hunting him ever since

Lol, I distinctly remember that!

Every ED player is different so after I did my own manual landings and take offs for the first few weeks I started using the automated landing/take off modules to save time and to also free up my hands so I can go use the bathroom or get a drink.

I’m with D regarding docking computers and the like. I’m loathe to give up a slot, even a class 1. We all have our own priorities and ED pretty much allows that. One of beautiful aspects of the game, neh?

Hey Bo, I'm sitting a couple of jumps away with 652t of Tritium I bought. I already filled your donations and delivered VO's and LTD's. Do you want the Tritium in my hold or do I sell it back?

Whichever you decide, Wingy. Should be a Trit buy order up if you decide to sell it onboard.

Yep, right on. Blaze your own!

I don't like the docking computer because I actually enjoy flying the ship manually!!

When I was doing some hardcore trading I found the DC invaluable. As soon as I'd engaged it I would open the map and plan the return trip to save time. Plus it's a great time in which to make tea/grab snacks/toilet break.

You can probably tell how long ago I played E:D,how long has auto-take-off been a thing? Noticed it a few months ago when I logged in to set up a new account with my Epic version.

Me too. It made sense when I played it on the ol' Spectrum 48k, because it really was a chore then. Plus, when you used the docking computer back then it would play The Blue Danube

It still does.:)

Wow, did not know that

Yeah, the very first time I used auto-dock and heard the Blue Danube play, I immediately caught the reference. I wonder how many of the younger players have no clue about why that song was chosen by the developer?

I suspect not many,
We had the movie on Netflix here in Europe, so may be some has seen the now more than 50 years old movie.
I still watch it now and then.

I have 2001 on bluray and it's been on my top 10 greatest sci-fi movies list for a very long time so needless to say I've lost count how many times I've seen it. My only lament is that I was not old enough to have seen 2001 when it premiered in movie theaters in 1968.

I watched it in 1968.
First thought they were running the wrong movie. A Sci Fi movie starting with apes?
One of the best on my list too.
I watched it again when I was dating my coming wife some years later. She passed that test.
I just looked at my bookshelf and I have 2010,2061 Odessey three and 3001 The Final Odessey.
I think I will read the final 2 books when I have the time.

Thank you for sharing that great personal story! Did the movie theater you go to in 1968 have the "Cinerama" capability?

I saw 2001 in 1976, my class went to see it as a school activity, but I feel maybe 12 years old was a little young to appreciate it fully. Especially as it was the same year as Star Wars, a movie made for 12 year olds

I feel that most people will know The Blue Danube from its 2001 context, but as I work in a pretty technical & geeky environment, and everyone I know more-or-less has girlfriends/wives/partners etc. of a similar social strata, that my view might be skewed.

I did a quick check on the format they showed in that periode. , They showed Cinerama movies in the 50`s, but I think they had 70 mm after the rebuild.
2001 was produced in 70 mm so I`m pretty sure that is the answer.
This cinema (the Colluseum) burned in 1963 and was rebuild a couple of years later.So I guess they had the newest equipment. On that time it was the biggest cinema in Oslo.

I think that is quite a safe assumption to make. Any 12 year old who fully manages to grasp the existential themes posed by 2001 would in my opinion have to have an IQ over 150!

With regards to Frontier.
I asked if they could change my commander name a couple of years ago. I used a silly name in the beginning and did not want to start a new career after all the grinding I had done.
They reacted quickly, and send me a nice message as well.
So all good from my part.