An Elite Dangerous player and member of the altruistic Fuel Rats group has uncovered what appears to be an insidious scheme while responding to a seemingly routine call for help.
Fans of the MMO will know that the Fuel Rats are a group of players in Elite who volunteer their services to help those who become stranded in the outer reaches of space. As detailed in the latest episode of the Fuel Rats podcast, aptly titled Exploitation Dangerous, mystery rat Mr. Purple describes a plot by an unnamed group to trick new players into getting stuck in a system from which they could not escape. Players were then coerced into mining valuable materials and selling them to the unnamed group for a fraction of market value, in exchange for a promise of future aid.
It seems the conspirators had embedded themselves within the starter system and would entice new players with promises of quick help and easy money. They would then guide the newbies to equip a mining ship with incredibly short jump range and give them a ride via fleet carrier into a system where the mining was to occur. Once the fleet carrier left, the new players were unable to travel outside the system due to the configuration of their ships.
It wasn’t until one of these players figured out that they could call on the Fuel Rats instead that the community became aware of the situation. The Rats have subsequently posted about the situation on Reddit in an attempt to warn the playerbase that this type of activity was occurring.
In other Elite Dangerous news, while the Odyssey DLC is slated to release within the upcoming year, a few wrinkles need to be ironed out before commanders set foot on a celestial body for the first time – namely, PS4 players are reporting error messages while trying to land on planets. The error messages were originally designed to keep players who had not purchased the Horizons DLC from being able to land, but Frontier has since merged Horizons into the base game, meaning no player should be prevented from a planetary visit. Frontier has acknowledged the issue and provided a workaround.
