Featured CMDR “Thunderseal Rebuy 🦄” Soantii

27 Nov 2020

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

I’ve lost so many hours in Frontier: Elite 2 on the Amiga, and I did so much trading that I was able to buy the Panther Clipper. I had to wait for days (in-game) at the star port to hire that last crew member (out of 12) so I could actually take off — it was a bit ridiculous! When I first heard about Elite: Dangerous, I was so excited to get back into the Elite universe, and downloaded it on the 1st day of release for the PS4 in 2017. It was like coming back home.

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

There’s so many moments, but in the old days it was pretty hard to make good money, but when the wing trade missions were first enabled, I was co-ordinating trade missions that gave us 50 million credits each run, using EDDB and Discord to help us get the needed cargo from nearby missions. We had a lot of fun for a week or two before Frontier decided we were having too much fun and nerfed the reward bonus. During an approach to a station, I watched Azzbo’s Imperial Cutter smack into the station wall above the mail slot. That was some drift he pulled off there, and to my immense regret, I forgot to record that moment — it was beautiful.

Tell the story of how you earned your callsign.

Which one? Haha. My first — Rebuy — was awarded when I foolishly told my sad tale about accidentally boosting, crashing and blowing up my Imperial Cutter (with full cargo) while trying to dock. Which isn’t that interesting, except I did exactly the same thing ten minutes later. 70 million plus credits gone in that time. In those days that it was really hard to earn credits…

Tell us about your favorite ship in the game.

It has to be the mighty Keelback, the galaxy’s best kept secret. I own several — Problem Child, Wee Sexy Beast, Keely Glint, Someone’s Else Problem, Honest Mistake.

I love the underdog, and everybody were really dissing the poor old Keelback. I had to do something about it, and I set up Keelback Awareness Week – I think it came off pretty well, and I’m thinking about the follow up.

What drew you to join The Fatherhood?

I was near Sagittarius A, when I first heard about the Fatherhood via the Elite Dangerous newsletter. As a group for space daddies with busy lives, it really appealed to me, and applied within that night. It was the best decision I ever made in the Elite Dangerous community. Back then the Fatherhood was only about 100 members strong, and it’s incredible to see it become the largest wing on Inara.

I’m on PS4 Original, and I’m the squadron commander of the newest PC squadron, Echo, which is primarily for the EU time zones.

how do you balance your home, work and gaming life (or do you)?

I’m a health care assistant working at a special needs school in Glasgow, Scotland. The hours are pretty good, as it guarantees that I’ll have free evening and weekends, and not to mention the holidays, which makes it easy for myself to look after my family.

What is one thing most people don’t know about you?

I think a lot of people here on the Discord and in the Elite: Dangerous Twitter community don’t know that I am profoundly deaf. Which means I was born deaf, and I know two languages – English and British Sign Language. I was pretty anxious about telling people that I couldn’t do voice chat in game, but this was totally unfounded as people were so understanding and cool about it, that it was never an issue, even when I was promoted to Wing Command, and eventually Wing Council.

We have a phenomenal community here on The Fatherhood Discord, and it’s why I’ve been playing Elite: Dangerous for so long and so often.

How did you come up with the name of your Commander?

Well… back in the old days of Frontier: Elite 2, I was flying around the Imperial systems, doing “Imperial volunteers” runs between Facece, Soanti and Achenar. I picked Soantii (probably a misspelling or faulty memory thing) for my PlayStation account years before Elite: Dangerous was a thing.

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

Remap the boost button if you’re a PS4 commander. Trust me on this. Circle and R1. Best thing you’ll ever do.

Supercruise Assist is essential if you’re doing exploration via PS Remote Play over a mobile network. You don’t want to get cut off by a bad mobile signal and then discover that you’ve lost the best part of 500 million credits worth of exploration data from Colonia to Beagle Point and back… cries

Setting up a Twitter account for Elite: Dangerous to share photos and experiences is also highly recommended. The Elite: Dangerous Twitter community is phenomenal and I regularly interact with commanders from other squadrons and all over the world – I’m @Cmdr_Soantii and we’d love to see you there!

Invitation to wing up

It’s dead easy to find me – my name is exactly the same as on the PS4 and PC account. Soantii. (Yes, I have two accounts)

Send a friend request on PSN to wing up with CMDR Soantii.

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