Seems 90% of the money made is first discovery. Finders keepers ;P

I've found it extremely difficult to locate the last species of exobio on planets after discovering the others. Seems if there is 3 on the planet, I can only find the two. Ive found some that look like rocks- which were interesting to find camouflaged as well as they were.

All in all, I made some bank today. Took about 4 or 6 hours. really not terrible. Feels like Void Opal mining but far more work.

Going to do some ratting to finish the night, or go to bed if its too quiet. o7.

I was directionless just at the start of today. I had come across the occasional biology by chance and wanted to play around with the tool but didn't really understand how lucrative it could be.

CMDR Aldarion 3TwoAlpha recommended to check it out and gave some tips; also said i need more screenshots in my journals. I'm not sure whats worth taking screenshots of- as I haven't seen anything out of the usual generic planet, some clumpy and grass looking exo-bio.

After about 5 hours of orientation, looking at a very useful guide on redit/frontier, and finding a sector with fresh landfalls and bios, I'm now Cataloguer rank. according to the wiki I made a very fast 500k in that time. Now that I know what I'm doing Elite rank doesnt feel very far from reach, and there's plenty of credits to be making. Wish this courier had a higher jump range to rat on the side- but I can't care enough to fully engineer it when my conda will get 20lys more on it. This thing currently has 34LY which is pretty respectable, a build i saw got it up to 50, very nice, but i just cant justify the investment.

Well, onto the grind.

I know what they say, don't talk and point out the flaws in a system because you need trust in the system and not to expose its weaknesses- buuuuuut- this is was my first CR as a rat and it was tragic.

This was probably 2 or 3 years ago. I was itching for a call- it was probably my first 5 dispatches and i was desperate to help. I had been wanting a Code Red case for weeks and was always passed up; but one day, they sent me and two others out. Instancing can be an issue. SOP went as normal- we all jumped into the system the client was in. They were logged into the main menu to preserve o2 as their fuel was totally out putting them on life support. The client said they were doing trades and on their way to a station and ran out of fuel somewhere between the star and the station- I remember .12ly distance- about half that of Hutton. Terrible trek, no wonder they ran out... We couldnt be sure how long they had been flying or where they ran out of fuel relative to their distance to the station. WE spread out in thirds along the route, try to cover our bases- maybe we get lucky and can leave them logged in while we SC over and fuel them up real quick... Only choice was to have them log in very quickly to see.

They were FAR from me.. and not close enough to risk leaving them logged in so we bounced them back to the MM. I grabbed their Wing Beacon distance I saw from me which was in LS. While the station was still showing Ly. My blood was rushing with adrenaline wanting to rescue the f out of this CMDR. I did some math- figured out the distance between us- added it to the star- double checked the math with the distance to the station- and positioned my ship behind, what i believed to be, the route they made and behind where they would have dropped out. The other two commanders seemed to guess about where they would be by eye balling it- no shame on them, im just bragging if im being honest...

I was the closest out of the other two- dropped in- pressed G as soon as i could- sent the limpet off- and boom... something exploded and the disconnection sound played on the wing. the clients name grayed out- Destroyed.

How is this possible- they werent even 5 seconds away from me- HOW did i run out of time!!!

i looked at my sensors to find a yellow solid square was on my contact-

I fired the damn limpet on the npc which was already in the instance with the client by the time I dropped in... guess the npc saw the beacon and dropped in on it.. turns out the client was just trading gold- in a hauler- but thats still a major setback... I cant let this event go out of my mind because it meant a lot to me and i dropped the ball... very predictable, for my life it seems...

I cant recall another commander dying since then... and even though its against SOP. I bring a god damn laser with me from now on- jump range and SOP be damned- im not letting another pirate take someone like that in front of me again. Its the ONLY reason i would open fire on a rescue.

Second post for a day, just thinking about this game. reminiscing.. thinking I'll have to put it away here soon to try and hit a pilots seat irl. would be a dream come true to get as close to this game as possible irl. planes are an entirely different beast- more intricate some how with the atmosphere and temps lol- but its damn close.

I was thinking about how the last time I got on this game about a year ago- I was flying with three CMDRS.. Fire, Atla, and koda- they were noobish and needed some materials bad- I cant remember if we went out for guardian materials first or second... but our schedules were all over the place- trying to communicate in discord and move the fleet carrier around was a pain... the raw materials were 1,500ly away... three very expensive jumps for an FC but their ships jump ranges were terrible. we finally got to the destination area, and then people stopped getting on as frequently- not communicating so i left the carrier in a farming location for about 24 hrs and posted about it moving and what to get- only one person would check in at a time, didnt know if the others were even going to bother getting back on- I know they were all a group before I joined but i was completely in the dark about anything not elite related... i kept moving the carrier and posting.

koda was the only one trying to talk and hang out- he was cool but i lost interest in the group after the other two stopped talking and then i stopped bothering with elite entirely.. just... why bother when people flake on you like that when you try to hook em up... im not going out of my way to help people like that again... its not appreciated... after a day or two of jumping the carrier around someone got left at a planet because they logged out at a planet instead of docking up like i warned them to. i told them to tell me when they were done farming or if they needed another day, they didnt... until one got left behind and it was a big deal. had to send the carrier back- 20 mins. and send it back to where we were- 15 more mins.. lot of waiting...

seemed like the main two were distracted doing other things- not communicating so i jumped us back to the bubble and havent talked with them since.. they ghosted me.. and i ghosted kota... didnt feel connected with that group- sure we had our laughs but it was just banter...

I know these are far and few in between but I never know whats worth updating this with. Mostly just flying around grinding various things in Elite.

I recently gave this game to CMDR BREADLOSS; a friend of Aomms and sort of my friend. I'm not as tight with breadloss as i am with aomm, and even less so with comm when compared to others. Guess thats how life works.. cant choose who you like and get along with- has a lot to do with hobbies, interest, world-view, and other things...

I'm writing this because I've spent the last few days playing with them and its been pretty fun. A few nights ago breadloss got on for the first time and I waited for hours while he did the tutorial stuff, getting his controller hooked up after the k&m didn't work out so well. Don't blame him much for that, even though I prefer them. He went to bed after that, around 6am- we didn't even meet up or do anything. I was mad i sat around waiting with my FC:Gemity stationed near the starting area ready to receive him and go bounty hunting to jump start his credits, assets, and income. The next days I spent grinding materials for my suit and weapons. made a LOT of progress but its painfully slow. I haven't even started with the engineering, though, I have a few mods from getting lucky at buying suits and weapons from Pioneer. I then wasn't sure if/when he was getting back on again, and my notoriety being at 9; after many innocents were killed getting materials for suits/weps. Figured I'd go deep and took a trip to Colonia to start with engineers over there. I'm tempted to move all of my operations and FC out there.. Just to get away for some reason.. maybe to be closer to the nebulas and the center of the galaxy- maybe even raxxla with the evidence provided from the "landscape sound"... Only thing keeping me back is that I like to be close for friend meetups, all the star ports for trading are there... and to shoot thargoids from time to time- speaking of, with the malestroms around, maybe Colonia is safer.. Maybe moving out there could entice them to reach the level in the game I had... so they can see how much effort and love I put into the game and maybe they will see why I love it so much through a glimpse of my eyes? I doubt they would though... who knows... I digress.

I found myself in Colonia burning off my notoriety, then breadloss and aomm got on- i took the 5 hour trip back only to be late to the reindeer games... they were messing around with settlements and stuff- breadloss only made enough to buy an eagle in that time.... aomm likes to enjoy things- doesnt matter how profitable it is or how things will grant him access to do things more effectively. I find fun in compounding assets. Get something to start, compound the productivity of that into something more, which compounds into the next step up. Then I can enjoy doing things with larger resources at my disposal to be more effective. I also like showing off my achievements and milestones- go figure with all the decorations I have here and in Inara. Collected every ship and clinging to this money-sink of a carrier best I can. Aomm doesnt see the value in it- just how he plays. Again, I digress.

I was rather upset spending 5 hours getting to the bubble again only for them to be getting off- breadloss stuck around and we went to a res site in Nanabozho, Lamrck Orbital I think... we made about 11 million credits in 1 or 2 hours. could do more in ground conflict zones but he couldnt even afford suits and weapons so this was a jump-start to that and maybe a T6. we were killing condas for 1.3 million. Average kill was 800k. one conda popped for 1.8 million.

The next day, these two got on again and we did those ground conflict missions- made about 10-20 million, breadloss was having some issues dropping from orbital cruise so he missed a lot of the fight bu I think he learned how to drop from OC and hit the glide.

To wrap this up- ive just been having fun and thought about the journal logs before stating how empty this game can feel and how its always better with friends... my problem is that I try to play the game for them because I know how to work the systems but some people hate that for some reason... i wish someone held my hand and showed me the shit i know now when i started.. but not everyone is me.. just glad to have some company and I know breadloss like the help since he had an asp ex on the consoles. figure its a way to catch him back up.

Exploring the ED lore with drew and his streams i recently found. I went and visited Voyager 1 and 2 in the last two days since it all started in Sol anyway. I was dumb and didnt just use the FSS to find them and did it the ole fashioned way by lining up the stars just right. what a pain in the ass.

anyway it was cool to see how tiny they are compared to the ships we fly in the game.

Starting to explore raxxla. i dont expect anything from it. maybe im looking at it thinking im different or smarter or will read between the lines like everyone else. thats hilarious. anyway

idk. same shit different day. politics is getting slimy irl. well. when hasnt it been. but its becoming obvious now i guess.

no other notes comes to mind..

it has really gripped me with the combat and being able to make as many credits as i have been. looking forward to it being released..

guess im writing these when i play elite and care enough to open this site to reflect on the many badges i have gotten. they were great ways to have miles tones and remember what i did. i forget a lot of things.. another reason im writing this...

being in the cobra again for the alpha really takes me back to 2015-16 when i was living with my mom and her at-the-time bf. I felt guilty for playing the game so much because i should have been getting a better job but not knowing whats out there, can really limit your options and imagination... especially when it comes to practicality.. I think those were WAY more memorable then.. I feel like each year that passes, ive lost more and more of my energy, hope, and wanderlust of the world and video games. Video games were a way for me to immerse myself in the impossible but i liked it to be explainable too. which is why i gravitated to this game.. but even it fails to grab my attention for more than a few months at a time since i feel like ive done everything...

I think a lot about how, i think the friends i mentioned before, are missing out on what elite has to offer for realism and cleanly ness. the lore and stuff leaves something to be desired but it does a good enough job by bringing it to life like the guardians and thargoids.. Idk the game isnt for everyone but i feel like a very picky minority? like normal run of the mill games dont do it for me because evvvveryone has experienced it and talked about it. Endless hours of clips and funny moments monetized.. not so much elite. its for the people that still hold wanderlust to space and futurism i guess. i think the friends from before live very much "in the moment" and kind of just follow the herd for whats popular.

Anyway maybe i should take a trip to the anaconda grave yard, or the highest system on the plane of the galaxy. so i can look back at it not rendered through the gal-map, and get that Neil Armstrong feeling they hoped odyssey would bring. Its nice, glad its here but it was more impactful to see the damn ships than land and look up. come on.

part of me wishes this was enders game. we are flying remote ships out in space, as a nasa project, completely unaware the lore so far was true and is a history book, perceived to be the future so we dont question much about it. maybe the discrepancies were lost in war or bookburning for "fact checks" or dirty secrets thats "better we dont know" lmao

but the instancing/network struggles tell me thats a fuckin lie lmao.

I got this game back in 2015ish. other space sims seemed to be from theird person RTS.. I wasnt a fan of them. Galaxy on Fire was a mobile game I played and it was pretty damn cool. i wanted something like that. Never been a fan of open world/sanbox games other than minecraft... too many things to do, and once you do them thats it.

When I started there wasnt the new training course like there is now. just the basics how to undock, hyper jump, land, and fight.

I remember being in awe at the detail of the space stations and ships. The details to science as it is, how the stations rotate slowly to apply centrifugal force on the inside of the "barrel" like structure.

I loved moving up in the ships, but when the game came out, it was slow... the slowest progressing game I've ever played.

Started out with bounty hunting at Nav beacons... that would only net me 300k cr/hr. I thought that was a lot at the time. I had no friends to play with.. Space felt as lonely as my social life..

I ran out of fuel at some point because this is when i started looking into becoming a fuel rat and Kamadhenu was my home station. Wanted to get into the bounty hunting bonuses from the A. Langly Duval power there.

I invited a friend to play with me called sheeptheif and he told me about slave trading.. did that up to and including a type 6. I was making about 1.5 million an hour and thought it was baller. He then told me about smuggling missions and thats about the last time i saw him on there.

I headed over to CEOS and SOTHIS. The smuggling missions were lucrative, netting about 3 million an hour.

Did this until I got my first Anaconda, which i lost because I flew without rebuy, rolling the dice on making more credits with it than trucking back to sothis and ceos with my 30ly asp. I lost it and back to it i went with smuggling...

Upon coming back to the game, I had a poorly outfitted anaconda.. smuggling was fixed and not so profitable.. I messed around trying to rat in my aspx for a while and i met Sir Belb. We hung out and he told me about 17 Draconis and its skimmer missions. Basically, you pick up 20 missions and 5 min SC to the planet, blow up the skimmers and menu hop until its done. I ran this to my first 3 billion-ish credits. That conda was looking NICE now. Still needed work. I took a trip to Colonia for the first time by that point i believe. Probably took me a full 18 hours round trip.

Took a break. Found the guardians had been discovered, investigated them and the engineers again since they got reworked. I loved hearing about Cannon Research and visited their megaship.

The first encounter happened and it all blew up, literally and figuratively. I LOVED the guardian sties, their modules, and the fighters. Ascetics were off the charts pleasing to me. Took another break as i had discovered and done everything id like in the game so far.

Right now ive made some friends of a friend and they have been interested in it. A large turnout of 5-6 people ended up getting it and playing it. I took a trip to Beagle point... I dont feel anyone really cared or was impressed or anything.

I dont know that they are going to stick around though... I can be a pretty toxic person and annoying, more often than not, always asking what they are up to and hoping that i can show them the guardian stuff and blow up thargoids together...

Maybe they need time away from me..... feels like when i started. myself and the emptiness..