Featured CMDR “Breathless” Bootstrap

What was your first experience with the Elite universe and what keeps you playing it today?

Preferring to commit to career games that can be played for a long time, I had been looking for something like Freelancer. It was clear Star Citizen was no where near ready (4 years later that’s still the same), and Elite was already out and receiving content updates. I keep playing Elite for the opportunity — some would say requirement — to invent your own gameplay and personal challenges. Engineer a crazy build and see if it works, make a special cargo run to a certain port, back an in-game faction, they’ve all got my own silent narratives in them.

Tell a quick story about your favorite moment in Elite: Dangerous.

Bumped into a trio of quite new players while in a starport. Chatting in game we agreed to do some bounty hunting together in a nearby RES. None of them had much experience, and were keen for someone to show them the combat ropes. They had poorly built and unengineered Cobras and Vultures, so once we got them outfitted properly we headed out. I had an engineered FDL and just flew it like a madman. Their reaction in the game’s voicechat to seeing that ship zipping through the asteroids and pulverising pirates was hysterical.

Tell the story of how you earned your callsign.

The Fatherhood had been featured in the Elite newsletter, so when they announced their Lost Souls expedition I joined up. After a stint of neutron-boosting I stopped to repair the ship. With that complete I returned to supercruise and began scanning the system. About 7 minutes later my ship exploded and in my disbelief I turned to my new squadmates for the explanation. They informed me I had failed to turn my life support module back on.

Tell us about your favorite ship in the game.

That would be Vulture Guts, my Mamba. It gets the name because it literally has the same modules fitted as a Vulture: powerplant, thrusters, distributor, FSD, shield – all so that it maintains it’s peak performance while delivering maximum firepower. Sure the defences are somewhat compromised, but you can’t have everything.

What drew you to join The Fatherhood?

I laughed out loud the first time I read “When the kids go to bed we go to space”, and less than a week after signing up to Lost Souls I applied to join the squadron as well. Joined Alpha as soon as in-game squads were a thing, and took over admin of Charlie squad so our leaders could start Delta and Echo. As Charlie filled up I founded Golf squadron for our fellow CMDRS in the Asia/Oceania region.

What’s your day job, and how do you balance your home, work and gaming life (or do you)?

My day job has me travel all over work with the aviation industry, so you may find me on at weird times or not available at all. When I’m at home I usually have a couple hours in the evenings. Sometimes play Saturday mornings so I can meet up with our members in the USA on their Friday night.

Any fatherly advice for new CMDRs trying to make their way in Elite: Dangerous?

Engineering makes you very powerful, don’t put it off. Hit up The Fatherhood’s discord channel #ship-crafting and our helpful team will eagerly offer tips for gathering materials, as well as helping you fine-tune your machine.