Okay, folks. Check your egos and 'fess up. What rookie screw ups from your first days in EV do you now laugh at yourself for?

Here is my (partial) list -- mostly stemming from NOT reading the Documentation. (I use a MAC. I don't need manuals or documentation!) :

1. I did not know I could board/plunder a ship, so I just blasted them into dust.

2. I did not understand outfitting or the shipyards and therefore, spent way too many hours in that blasted shuttle craft.

3. I screwed up my preference settings. I set "Nearest Target" and "Target" to be the SAME key. It made searching for those Executive Transports a hoot cuz I could not scroll through the ships in a system. I had to zoom from ship to ship as fast as I could locate them. Usually the Tranport was long gone...

4. Once I learned how to capture ships as escorts I did not know how to control them. (I still had not read the documentation.) ...So they'd fly straight into a dog fight and I'd lose whatever cargo they contained.

...That's enough. (If nobody else admits to mistakes ... somebody hacked my password and posted this fake message.) :redface:

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Let's see what this button does....

Lets just say that it took me almost 5 minutes to work out that asteroids can't hit you, and so was whizzing about Levo in a frantic bid to miss the rocks flying about. Pretty stupid, huh?

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Top this: not understanding the difference between primary and secondary weapons until it was far too late (pounding on the space bar in a desperate attempt to launch missiles as the pirate Kestrel came closer, ever closer)

I have also been guilty of forgetting to purchase an auto-eject when buying a shiny new ship. Imagine my surprise when my trusty escape pod failed to appear!

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PlanetPhil
not drowning, waving

Oh, Wow! Those were both funny! (Mostly cuz I remember the same goof ups for myself.)

(Conspiratoraly) Cable Guy, your asteroid goof reminded me, I still will occasionally shoot at asteroids randomly. I'm just not convinced there is no Easter Egg associated with ONE of those suckers. (You know, "Zap! Congratulations! Your shield refresh rate was just bumped up 2000%.") One of these days it'll happen ... I just know it.

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Let's see what this button does....

Not to be rude, but I read the Documentation before even starting. It drove my brother insane, sitting there waiting for me to start playing, but it was worth the read.

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If a PC crashes in the forest, and no one hears it, did it really crash?

If I'd made mistakes, I'd be posting here too. If I weren't such a nice guy, I'd be laughing at you. Of course I am though, so I won't.

It took me about five minutes to figure out how to hyper-jump. As a result, I picked Vulcan on my map and then flew in that general direction, never getting anywhere.

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-Gavin
(url="http://"http://dhm.smoovenet.com")Don't Hate Me(/url)

After playing EV for a while, I started a new character, bought a light freighter and took it to the fringe. A pirate defender explained the error to me. To say that the light freighter sucks does not do justice to this horrible disgrace of a ship :mad:.

Unfortunately, I could not afford a better ship, but was able to earn some cash by trading. So I bought upgrades for the freighter, and the torture continued. Eventually, I had all three engine upgrades, a proton turret, some armor, and a missle rack+10 missles. This maxed out freighter was almost flyable--I even killed a corvette with it. Keeping the thing supplied with missles ate up my meager trade earnings, so I was still trapped. The rapier was my nemesis. The freighter with full upgrades cannot dodge or outrun torpedos. The rapier was too tough to kill before it launched all of its torpedos. Afterburners dont help-- you need to fuel for hyperspace. So whenever a pirate rapier appeared, I died, unless the jump drive was mercifully fast.

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When I started to play EV, I always accepted a bunch of missions to far off places, and then I got confused when little gray circles with red arrows started appearing in seemingly reandom places on my map. After about 5 minutes, I decided that these were systems that had been attacked and had been destroyed because I hadn't gotten there and saved them fast enough. Once I explored more, I realized that the systems were perfectly safe, but I was still confused. After ominous red arrows started to appear, seemingly coincidentally, around places I had missions to, I finally figured out the link between the two and I was much happier 'cause I could finally figure out where I was supposed to take my cargo/passengers to.
Pretty stupid mistake, eh?

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"...Until next time, take care of yourselves, and each other." Jerry Springer

(This message has been edited by BattleDoctor (edited 03-06-2001).)

Quote

Originally posted by BattleDoctor:
**... red arrows started to appear, seemingly coincidentally, around places I had missions to, I finally figured out the link between the two and I was much happier 'cause I could finally figure out where I was supposed to take my cargo/passengers to.
Pretty stupid mistake, eh?
**

So THAT'S what those red arrows are for...! :eek: Thanks!

(...And pay no attention to those guys mocking us. They live on Quake.)

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Let's see what this button does....

It took me 2 days to learn how to manuover my ship to land. I was just hyperspacing between Levo and Rigel until I ran out of fuel.

Also, I thought the Rebels were mean people that were going to kill me. I accidentally jumped too far west, and I ran into a Rebel Destroyer. I scared to death, but then it didn't hurt me...

Thus began my long relationship with the Rebellion...

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You're just jealous that the voices talk to me. **
(url="http://"http://www.drippingchipmunk.com")DrippingChipmunk.com(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.jonpearse.f2s.com/ev3/ev3_quotes.php")#EV3 QUOTE ARCHIVE (/url)**

I remember the first mistake I ever made... I was in my shuttlecraft, and I was so proud that I had the money to buy to laser cannons! Proudly, I left Earth, and looked for a ship to test my new killer-weapons on. I saw this rather big vessel...I wasn't sure what it was. It was large, grey, and had these little blue dots on its wings. "I guess I'll shoot at that thing," I thought. I fired my laser cannons, and began rejoycing when I saw his shields fall to 99%! Then I began to get kinda scared when lots and lots of these blue balls began flying towards me, and these little fighters began coming out of the ship's hull and swarming me. In a few short seconds, I was but dust. That day, I learned never to shoot at a Confederation Cruiser until you've got the firepower and guts to do so. Oh, those were the days...

~Captain Skyblade

Visit my EVO website! (url="http://"http://artworks.tmgmedia.net")http://artworks.tmgmedia.net(/url)

sits back and remembers the days when he used to do the same things

Oh wait, I did that on purpose.

The first time I played, I didn't read the documentation, readme, controls, etc. I was rather surprised that I couldn't find any planets, or ships, and couldn't move in any direction other than straight. I didn't play again for several months.

After that, I tryed again. I was pretty good! The only thing was, I couldn't figure out what the grey-red or grey-blue ships were: I couldn't buy them in the shipyard, and there was no way to find out what they were. Plus, my turrets and secondary weapons never fired! Tehn. I accidentaly discovered targeting.

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THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!
(Lies are in your head.)

Quote

Originally posted by Entropy:
**The first time I played, I didn't read the documentation, readme, controls, etc. I was rather surprised that I couldn't find any planets, or ships, and couldn't move in any direction other than straight. I didn't play again for several months.

After that, I tryed again. I was pretty good! The only thing was, I couldn't figure out what the grey-red or grey-blue ships were: I couldn't buy them in the shipyard, and there was no way to find out what they were. Plus, my turrets and secondary weapons never fired! Tehn. I accidentaly discovered targeting.

**

LOL! We all had our days, Entropy.

~Cap'n Skyblade

Oh, I have done the avoid asteroids thing and the fire at freakishly large spacecraft. I found out that if I wasn't playing in strict mode, I shouldn't buy an escape pod. I learned, after attacking a freakishly large spacecraft, to buy a freaking auot eject with my escape pod. I had the advantage of looking over the controls before jumping into the game. I learned not to buy the damn defender. I lost a lot of credit in that thing. I bought it, found out it sucked and couldn't carry cargo, then I sold it, getting it out of my sight for a brand new shuttlecraft. In my first shuttlecraft I made the mistake of jumping into a asteroid field and attacking an argosy-without any weapons! I died pretty quickly. Stupid pirate. I made a mistake of going into a little asteroid crevice. There are three systems with only asteroids in the bottom-right hand corner. I flew into that, landed on the barren planet back there, and felt stuck. Took me about a half-hour to figure out that I can request help from other ships. Too bad I was broke, eh? I was trying to find pirates to steal money from. I eventually disables a pirate argosy and stole its credits and fuel before blowing him up.

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Are you gonna tell him that's a boy cow?
Naw, he'll figure it out.

Beat THIS worst newbie mistake:

/me opens up MacAddict CD in Jan 97.

E: Hey, Escape Velocity! Looks like another of those stupid stargazing programs like Voyager or Distant Suns! What a waste - I won't even bother installing it...Hey look - a game called "Space Taxi"! Looks fun!

July 97: I invite my PC user friend over to boast of my software and hardware.

Friend: Ohmigosh! You've got EV! Ohmigosh, have you played it?! it's AWESOME!!!!! FAB!!!
/me installs and plays.
ElG7: crud, I feel stupid. How could I judge so HARSHLY by name: I am so DUMB!!!! Why didn't I install this game 6 months ago? It's WAY better than that dumb space taxi!!!!

So as you see, my first newbie mistake extended to even BEFORE I ever played EV!

ElG7

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KIRK: Very funny, Scotty - now beam down my clothes!
(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum10/HTML/002301.html")Darkest Hour – An EV/O Saga(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum10/HTML/002253.html")Slow-reading Story(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl?path=evo/guides&file;=TechFolder.sit")Captain Canardley Ableson's Technical Guide to the EV/O Universe(/url)

I used to just shoot everything. And then, when I got killed, I would wonder why my shuttle with laser cannons lost. And, when I ran out of hyperspace fuel, I would try and fly through real space to the next system (which, of course, is impossible). I eneded up meeting a barrier at the edge of the system.

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(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/skyblade500/omega_conspiracy/index.html")The Omega Conspiracy(/url) - New chapter added 3/4/01

I actually did read the documentation through before starting, but of course it doesn't include a map...it must have taken me a week of fairly solid playing to find the Sol system. I remember getting up very early one morning, deciding to play EV instead of revising for the exam later that day, and stumbling into the Centauri system. It was a great flash of insight: Centauri = next to Sol.

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If your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.

Quote

Originally posted by Captain Skyblade:
I remember the first mistake I ever made ... That day, I learned never to shoot at a Confederation Cruiser until you've got the firepower and guts to do so.:) Oh, those were the days...

Ooh! I got a good laugh on that one, Skyblade.

My first day I somehow stumbled onto the map. "Okay! There are other planets out there. Now, how do I get there?"

I would click a destination, resume piloting and hit "H" to hyperspace. (I knew that would work because I'd played some arcade game years ago where the "hyperspace" button did that.)

"Beep!"

"Whadya mean, 'Beep'? Go there, you stupid shuttlecraft!!!"

It took me quite a lot of trial and error to figure out "jumping". (Now that I think of it, it was a "typo". I missed the H and my ship just STOPPED ... for a few seconds. Then,
"Yea! I did it!!! Wait a minute! Just what DID I do when that happened...?")

Geez!

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Let's see what this button does....