Stupid things to do

Hehehe!

If you can think of any stupid ways you have been killed, things you have done or anything else stupid that can be done in the vast Frontier Universe fill in a Stupidity Form and this section will grow! Thanks go to everyone who has contributed to this section. Three quarters of the way to being able to call it 101 Stupid things to do...

Landing and deploying an MB4, leaving maximum time accelerate on while you watch TV and coming back to find the drive has broken down.
Killing yourself with your own turrets.
Switching on external view while docking and while looking at the pretty ship, not paying attention to the docking procedure, crash into the station!
Parting out an old ship and upgrading to a new one, outfitting it with everything you can think of, taking off....and discovering, as your ship rains bits all over the sky, that you've forgotten to buy atmospheric shielding!
Bust a gut trying to get some packages to the station in time by turning off the Autopilot and then accelerating all the way to the planet - miss the point where you ask for clearance and turn yourself into a large, impressive crater in the surface.
Buying 1000 tonnes of slaves... selling 1000 tonnes of fertilisers.
Ask for clearance at a space station and turn on the Autopilot immediately after lifting off from a ground station without realising the station is on the other size of the planet with the same results.
Miss-time a theoretically impressive fly-through of a ring-type station and get clobbered by one of the cross-pieces...
Take off just ahead of your intended assassination target with the intention of waiting outside the station for them but not changing flight vector - you can get a really close view of the target vessel... Talk about not shooting till you see the whites of their eyes!
Chasing an intended target towards a planet: Oblivious to the growing planet, you blast your target to pieces. You are now doing a few 100 km/s towards the planets surface with seconds to impact!
Busting chops to get package to Ross154, barely beating the deadline, before just realizing the package was destined for Ross172.
Doing something illegal on Earth just so as to get into a fight with the police and overworking my Amiga's cpu so that the picture updates about once per second so the only thing I can see is the ship self righting itself while I'm blasted from the sky.
Waiting for an assasination attempt outside a planet days before it's due to happen and speed the time up to the fastest unaware that i'm orbiting too low......and bang!
Deliberately mis-jumping to escape a pirate attack, only to come out of hyperspace in sector 13425 -245456 with no fuel.
Running out of fuel in the Alpha Centauri system.
Buying a very large ship (Lion transport) then making the opening in a starport a little larger by not fitting in the hole..... big bang..... my advice, buy shields, and dont let the autopilot take you into the starport!!!
Mis-place your hands on the keyboard, and when launching from a spaceport, pitch the nose up and accidently hit the Shift key for retros instead of the Enter key for the main engines, thus reversing into the spaceport landing pad and exploding. Extra points are gained if you back into the control tower.
Attempting a manual landing, getting to 3 metres from the ground only to find the undercarriage is still in the up position. Ending in a big explosion.
Accidently firing you laser while having maximum time acceleration on. Empty fuel tanks. No fuel in inventory. Then crashing into a gas giant, which makes you think: "Fuel scoops sometimes are handy".
Docking on a spaceport with a Panther Clipper full of luxury goods and only 0.7C cash. Selling all the luxury goods and asking for clearance and being busted by the cops because of not paying the 1C docking fee!
Buying a Lifter.
So I sell my ship, buy a new one. I dont need atmospheric shielding, because I'm not going planetside. I fly out of Mars High, at full time compression. By the time I jump, I've skipped off mars' upper atmosphere. The only piece of equipment damaged was my autopilot.
Entering the Riedquat system unarmed.
Buying radioactives at Bernards Star, for some extra cash, and forgetting to dump them right after hyperspace into SOL, returning to earth and getting fined for smuggling illegal goods.
Loitering outside an orbital station for an assasination, forgetting that the station orbits. A brief burst of speeded up time later and the station flies into you as you sit blissfully unaware that you are parked in its orbit.
Hassle the police outside a space station, and pay the fine. You might be able to dock inside *behind* 2 police vipers that are waiting to launch, and see them purposelessly blow themselves up, from behind.
Having spent a lifetime of trade in Luxury Goods from Sol to Barnards Star, to buy a new Panther Clipper, then realizing that you need 5 more crew, then waiting for months for the crew in the bulletin board, then the drive falling to pieces....
Landing for a mining operation on a planet and then discover that it has a too high G to lift off again.
Fitting a marvellous new fuel scoop, mis-jumping, having just enough fuel to make it to a nearby system, scooping about fifty tons of Hydrogen Fuel, only to realise that you have a Military Drive!
While travelling in space, you get attacked by pirates. Whadda ya know, it's an Imperial Courier. Good luck I have a 1MW Pulse Laser and enough hydrogen fuel to go nowhere else than the next space station.
Taking up your undercarriage before you ignite your take-off thrust. It's always a nice way to see more of the stars...
Taking off and thrusting forward...then realising that as the hanger bay in front of you draws nearer you're still in turret view...
Taking on a passenger that the Mafia's after, dropping out of hyperspace, engaging around five fighters at once and emerging victorious from combat... only to find that only casualty of the battle was your autopilot - And the station you need to dock at is orbiting at a mental pace...
Started a new game and lifted off after clearance, not realising that a) I hadn't reversed up/down, and b) I had inadvertantly switched to the rear view. All I did was point my bum skywards and thrust forwards into the pad.
Flying with a class 3 military drive. Jumping around vast distances. Finding out in one system that they have no Military Fuel in stock!
Attempting to land on a Gas Giant. Need I say more? (Well I thought I was cool at the time...)
Forgetting to refuel and taking off with under 1 ton of fuel... returning to the spaceport through the sheer will of gravity. Hello mole!
Hypering into an Anarchy system, hold laden with expensive and illegal items, only to take on around 15 or so pilots without shields... because you're in a Panther and therefore you don't need such things *sigh*
In the heat of battle, you frantically attempt to evade an incoming misile by using your ECM system... only to hit the "X" key instead of the "E" key by not looking at your keyboard... well, at least you kinda evaded the missile...
Leaving your undercarriage down for a laugh during a long freight haul, just to defy the computer warning because, hell, your a rebel! <See Below>
Taking on a time-short military mission in your brand new Panther Clipper, then relising just how slow it is. Crying shorty after as ou arrive at your destination a good three months or so late.
Somehow managing to take on thirty assasination missions and causing the game to crash.
Picking a fight in a system for cash. Getting hit in the thrusters, jumping to a safe system, discovering that my acceleration is too low and that I will require 12 hours of max time acceleration to reach nearest dock. Leave computer on all night, check the clock, find I am about seven minutes away from station. Make a cup of tea. Return to find Ship Plastered over station.
Attacking a Panther in a Kestrel.
After spending hours getting a panther clipper and an avarage rating, you take on a assassination trip to Alpha Centari, and you've even got 37 days to make it in. Fly 100.000 AU and get there one hour too late.
At last you get the money for a big new ship. You buy it, equip it to the teeth and are going to take off, just to realise you forget you need 5 more crew members.
Taking manually, getting out of the planet and shutting down engines to give time to make a sandwich, only to come back and see that the engines were not switched off far enough from the planet and that the attraction grabbed the ship back and crashed it
Watching a planetside beautiful sunset landing in autopilot mode from outside view on a Starport that is made up of swimming landing platforms in the ocean, not noticing that the autopilot brings you down halfway outside the perimeter of your platform....consequently seeing the ship tumble over sideways and crash on the water surface in the moment of touchdown.
Taking crew members in a Panther Clipper and then by accident going to a remote system and your crew decide to leave beacuse you want to save on the budget by paying only 5 Credits salary and there are no crew members at the station and no trade or sell ships.
Dumping the radioactives after completing a hyperspace jump with a military drive by holding the mouse button pressed on the dump cargo button, then taking the finger off too late: all fuel out as well. 40 AU to go, no cargo scoop to get the fuel back and internal tank almost empty since with an auto refueler I don't care for such things like fully loaded tanks.....
Bought a lifter, landed it about 20 meters from the landing pad, flicked on the time accelerator for about an hour until my drive knackered due to lack of servicing, then managed to get the ship onto the landing pad, kitted it out with a class 1 military drive and a tonne of fuel, used to wormhole bug to get it a good few hundred lys from any inhabital planet, then realised there was no way to get back or fuel up. decided to land on a rockey planet and laughed at how amusing a Lifter outside of populated space was,
I tried to use an escape pod in an Imperial Trader. Silly me - I thought it would actually do what it was meant to do, you know, let me escape instead of catapulting me into my overhead engine. Thanks, Mister Braben.
I decided to take on the entire Police force of the Mars space station in a Cobra MK3. They didn't particularly like it. But I killed about 5 of them then flew into station whilst trying to out manuver a viper. OOOPS.
Spending 10 minutes trying to scoop up that 1 ton of narcotics, only to realise your cargo hold is still full because you havent jettisoned your radioactives yet.
Getting into a fight with another ship, waiting till he is just in your sights, Arming your most powerful and smartest missile, wait for it, wait for it, FIRE, (then realising that just to check out your ships stats on radar mapper, that your own ship is targeted), panicing as you see your missile flip round and come towards you........watch the missile come, remember that you just changed your ship and have no escape module, the missle comes closer, and BOOOOOOOOM!
Not bothering to re-learn how to play - or indeed the basic keyboard commands - despite not having played Frontier since 1994, spending two days hitting every button on the keyboard and screaming with rage cos I wouldn't hyperspace. Then realising it would help if I bought some fuel. And, indeed, selecting a target system.
I was happily getting paid to dump radioactives, but i also had no room to get cargo bay life support for some livestock, so go into orbit to dump my radioactives and what happens..........forty five cows are now sucked inside out because i was to anxious to read what button i was pushing..........
Bought a new ship and immediately chucked out the drive for a smaller one (if you've got two systems 1.64 lightyears from each other with stupidly different buying and selling prices, you would too) then proceeded to load it up with buttloads of cargo. OK, LAUNCH! Why aren't I moving? Note to self, buy fuel next time.
Having fought hordes of pirates in anarchy system with hull at 5% just .1AU away from the spaceport get attacked by a cobra. See the Cobra firing a navy missle at you which you can neither avoid nor jam. Watch the missle coming. Say your last prayer. BOOM! Then realise you have lots of shields and they just saved you. Laughth in relief, then look back at the screen. Realize, while you were laughthing, the damn cobra came closer and is now almoust done burning through your shields. Watch a nice big BOOM.
Trying to fire a missle from an Imperial Trader and hitting your own ship with it.
Performing an assasaination mission in the airspace of a starport, taking off illegally immediately after my target has taken off, getting on his six pack and shooting. While dodging the Vipers on MY tail, neglect to notice that I am in fact accellerating faster than the ship that I'm targetting. Unfortunately the target had a greater hull mass than me.
Buying an Interplanetary Shuttle and assuming that with it's name, it is entirely possible to fly it between a planet's surface and a space station.
Bought me a nice big Panther with the integral (and unavailable in shops) Class 8 Hyperdrive, which promptly disintergrated. So I fill the entire hull with shield generators and start ramming lynx bulk carriers!!!
Finally having the skills to do a bombing run... only to save the game, go away, restart it and believe you're on a photo run.
This one is related to 28 and 36. Trying several times to land on Aster the small gas Giant of Ross 154 just to do it. Succeeding, but now the thrust-off button does not even push you up for more than 10 milliseconds before landing again because of the High-G. No way to take off, but watching the planet rise and set is cool.
Trying to land on Betelgeuse.
This is doubly stupid for me, because I'm one of those physics geeks who reads cosmology textbooks for fun! I attempted to scoop fuel from a white dwarf. Despite the fact that the logical part of my mind says it's depleted all its nuclear fuel...the other part says "Well, it's 2 AU closer than the other star, and I bet Dravid Braben doesn't know that anyway." I later found out he was studying to be a cosmologist! ::falls on face::
Accepting a mission to kill someone - going there, waiting for over a month only to find out the information is wrong and the ship you are waiting for has not shown up; angrily jump back home to report only to find your drive has just broken down - in Alpha Centauri!
Finally get the timimg right on your first assassination target (after seven attmpts)... but get a little impatient when it's one minute late leaving the station so try the trick of firing at the station. Watch with interest as the ID system shows a police Viper appearing in the station as a cloud of debris simultaneously erupts from the station's orifice....
Trying to improve the payload/speed of your new multi-million credit Imperial Explorer by letting the drive die by a base with top-of the range miitary drives. Then finding with a Class 3 mil drive the range is ~1.67 ly. Anyone want to buy a drive ornament to impress the neighbours? - very low mileage, MOT, Tax, small plasma accelerator, one areful (but dumb) owner, etc. P/E considered.
Set autopilot for London then crash into the M. Gorbachov Station that was on the route for the spaceport just at that moment !!
Trying to explore new worlds (a little like the USS Enterprise), getting away from the inhabited systems, thinking that i can fuel scoop about everywhere, then (re)discovering that after one year, your drive breaks down. In the -25,-36 outter space, no one will hear you screaming...
Getting your rear thrusters in a Constrictor shot out and having to fly back to the nearest starbase backwards!!
Land with maximum battle damage and no goods to trade, then by force of habit... save the game, overwriting your last position... oops!
Playing the game for months in an Eagle Long range fighter to save money for a big ship, then buying a nice big Panther and when attempting to manual pilot into a space station forget that the front 'window' is on the TOP of the craft, not in the middle and consequently smashing my unshielded Panther to bits on the bottom of the airlock.
While lining up a perfect shot of my ship with a Cobra mk1 behind, finger poised over "Print Screen", forgetting that he wants to shoot me. The obvious conclusion then occured. Doing something similar with a view of my ship overflying a city. Fogetting about the old "ship pointing up not necessarily mean ship going up" chestnut. Did get a nice shot though. Something to remember me by.
Thinking i have 10 sheild generators and fuel scooping from a red giant.
Throwing away the starmap, and, realising its huge importance the next day, rumaging through the dustbin in a vein attempt to recover it amongst rotting fish offal and old nappy bags!
Being pulled outta accelarated time by an attack, go to rear view as there ain't nothing in the front, radar map the Falcon in the distance and prepare to engage it, all the time unaware of the Cobra III who is laughing at the idiot in the Viper (Me) while happily carving up my hull with it's beam laser, needless to say I now take a scanner everywhere I go nowadays.
accepting a passenger who worked as a spy and jumping into the sytem they want. Get denied clearance to land as horeds of pirates attack you with no fuel left to leave.
Autopiloting to a spacestation, only to find that the traffic control is busy launching another ship. Letting autopilot to wait right in front of the launch bay...
When you get your first Bombing mission, take a photo mission for the same planet then return to find you took a photo of the one you were meant to bomb and vica-versa just to lose rank.
While on your way to a bombing mission you engage in battle, then then arriving at the target, finding you fired the nuclear missile at an Imp Courier.
Taking on six photo missions at relatively close sytems and accidently saving the game after miss-jumping over 700ly away.
Buying a constructor and then find that there is no crew available to fly it.
Taking eight high-paying package delivery Military missions from Sol-Alpha Centauri at a time-not realising it'll take me a month insystem to get to the starport (fortunately, this didn't matter-by the time I got there, I'd run out of fuel so I ended up decorating Eden!
En route to Boston Base via autopilot at max time acceleration, slamming midway into some idiot ship coming the other direction.
Alternately, jumping into system, setting autopilot, max time acceleration, diving into star which is directly in your path.
i was looking in the external view at my brand new krait assult fighter in an asteriod field i didnt bother to chek the scanner for any asteriods up ahead aand crunch the next thing i new i was loading my game again NEVER TRUST ASTEROIDS.
Landing a big ship on a planet with a large G is not recommended. I put down a Boa on New Africa (G=2.4) and its still there. The clouds of smoke churning up from underneath it looked pretty though. I had to sell the ship and buy a lighter one that could cope with the high gravity.
Hit london at 90% speed of light (relative to earth)in a fully laden panther clipper realisticly all of europe wouldve been vapourised if the mir space station hat hit earth at this speed. 269813212.2 m/s is 90% light speed
Trying to use a dummy mine in combat.
Taking a militay mission to Ross 154, jumping, then realising that you have no atmospheric sheilding and enough hull mass to survive little more than a cigarette burn, let alone a re-entry.
Trying to mine an asteroid and finding out that I'm actually shooting at Phobos above Mars.
Dock at Eta Cassiopeia, with a bit of surplus military fuel sloshing around in the back. Check bulletin board. Wanted: military fuel will pay loadsamoney. Oh good, I can sell off 5 tons and still have plenty for the run back to AC79o. click, click, click etc. oopps - to many - way to many. Eta Cassiopeia doesnt sell military fuel. Can't change hyperdrive to a standard (cant buy/sell military hyperdrives greater than level 1). One ship for sale with many expensive extras thrown in for free by dumb owner. duh!
Getting to Alpha Centauri on time for the deadline and then running out of fuel just outside the dock, flying down on inertia after having fought off an enemy ship and then still not getting paid!
Buy A Panther Clipper with loads of sheild generators and take of only to get stuck in the airlock due to a bug where your ship is partly in the station wall, wait and wait and wiat to die but unfortunatly you just have too many damn sheilds. Vipers Launch and crash straight away, oh well the station's unusable to anyone else either!

Back to Main Page