Streams are one-offs for your entertainment, so remember that they don't have to sync up with our overall CMA path. We have Elite streams set to go each week of this CMA, and I want to know what you want to see and what you want explored. Terrible piloting skills aside, I'm down for whatever you want to throw at me. We can start picking up combat missions, continue working as delivery pilots, try our hand at the commodities market, or fire ourselves deep into space to discover its hidden secrets and probably get eaten by Unicron or that thing from The Fifth Element. This week, we're going to start dialing in on some of the more specific career paths available to pilots in the current beta version of the game. Open the bulletin board, collect your credits, and move on to the next mission. From there you approach the station at regular ship speed, request permission to dock, and complete the not-so-easy task of putting your ship down on the docking pad you have been assigned. To dock and complete a delivery mission, you'll need to supercruise as close as possible to the station (much harder than it sounds) and pop your ship into regular flight mode. Supercruise speed is determined by your proximity to objects in space, and supercruising too close to an object will engage an emergency stop that dumps you spinning into regular flight mode with warning sounds blaring. It's even possible to supercruise from one star to the next without engaging lightspeed, though this would take days or weeks according to the Elite: Dangerous wiki. You can drop out of supercruise at any time, even if there's nothing particularly interesting around you. Supercruise is an interesting idea that helps bridge the gap between systems without turning travel into a boring string of warp screens. In supercruise mode, you're free to explore the objects populating each system, which include stars, planets, asteroid belts, space stations, and more. When you pop out of hyperspace, you'll still be millions of kilometers from your destination, but your ship is in what Elite refers to as "supercruise" mode. There's a very satisfying countdown sequence that marks the transition into lightspeed, followed by a warp animation. First, you lock your destination via the navigation panel, initiate the lightspeed jump (assuming you're not too close to any large structures), point your ship in the right direction, and punch it. It is a multi-step process that requires precision and patience. Navigating space in Elite: Dangerous is a bit different from navigating space in a game like EVE Online or Mass Effect. Strangely, many of these missions offered higher rewards than tougher sounding combat missions. I focused on delivery missions, which are as simple as entering a destination location into your nav pane and completing a few quick lightspeed jumps. Missions range from smuggling illegal substances to blowing up pirates to delivering simple messages and all are presented with a text explanation that includes the pertinent details. Missions are straightforward in design and minimal in presentation pop into a space station, check out the bulletin board, and accept anything that looks interesting. Once I had a grasp on the basics, I set about carving my path to fame and fortune by exploring Elite's mission offerings. And I've learned about interdictions, which occur when one ship forces another ship out of supercruise mode to shake it down, scan its cargo, or simply blow it up (death number three - in the current beta only NPCs can perform interdictions). I've learned that momentum is an important factor when calculating how one should best approach a massive, spinning structure (death number two). I've learned that space stations prefer you ask for permission before you attempt to swing into the bay and park your ship (death number one). In my brief time thus far with Elite: Dangerous, I've learned a fair few things about getting around in space. In this, the second week of our Elite-focused Choose My Adventure, we'll be seeking an answer to that very question. "Yeah, you have a spaceship," Elite says, "but what exactly do you intend to do with it?" Space sims like Frontier Development's Elite: Dangerous let you skip ahead a bit to see what things might be like when launching yourself into space will come with all the grandiosity of running to the store for some bread. Space travel is immensely expensive and complicated humanity is still decades or even centuries away from easily accessible personal spacecraft. Thus, the space race isn't just about firing objects into the universe and seeing how far they can go but about building contraptions that deliver enough tender love and care to keep folks alive for the journey. Humans have a specific list of things that are needed for survival, and space is in a continual state of being fresh out of all of them. Space is not a very good place for people to hang out.
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