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Tell us a dumb way to die in Elite Dangerous!

Posted by Alex Sinclair in Elite Dangerous

Those of you who were on the internet in 2012 may well remember the viral public safety video 'Dumb Ways to Die'; if not here it is:

Inspired by Stormseeker's reward idea, we thought we'd create an Elite Dangerous version. To win a prize, tell us about a way you or a friend have died 'dumbly' or share an idea for how a commander could accidentally die in-game due to the silliest of choices. Videos are always more than welcome, but you can also simply enter this reward with a sentence of text. If you need more words to tell your story well, no problem, but for this reward we only need a sentence or two.

Who knows, maybe our next reward will be to ask you to turn these death tales into an equally catchy song!

Image credit: Frontier Developments and CMDR Henckes as seen in our Elite Dangerous screenshots of planets gallery

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Created at 12:10pm, 21st January, 2025. Page last updated at 1:55pm, 22nd February, 2025.
Deadline at 11:00pm, 17th April, 2025.

AndyRice 1/25/2025, 3:58:09 PM

One of my friends in the game died yesterday because of my dumb mistake.

He is relatively new to the game, and he made the common mistake that most beginners make: running out of fuel and getting stranded in space. What's worse, his ship was completely out of power, all systems were down, and he had only 5 minutes of oxygen left. So I jumped into my rescue Krait Phantom and rushed to him as fast as I could.

When I reached him, there were only 2 minutes of oxygen left. I dropped out of supercruise, and the distance between us was 4 kilometers. In my haste, I hit the boost button and flew straight toward him. But I forgot two things: 1. I had built my rescue Krait Phantom to be especially tough and fast to escape potential gankers; 2. All the systems on his ship were down, including the shield.

So the touching story of rescuing my friend ended up being that I traveled 200 light years just to ram into him and send him back to rebuy.

Alex SinclairMod1/27/2025, 10:50:13 AM

AndyRice

It's the thought that counts? 😂

AndyRice 1/27/2025, 12:40:18 PM

Alex Sinclair

Well at least I meant well🥲

GreybeardSeawolf 2/13/2025, 7:10:33 PM

Ah yes, the day I learned how important timing is when I decided to try use my newly added Improved Jump Assist modification on my suit to beat my recalled ship to the landing pad of a Settlement I was....ahem liberating materials from. While I technically won the race sadly I did so from beneath the landing gear of my DBX

The Culprit GSS Long Jump Silver....

Y0EMINENCE 2/19/2025, 10:05:09 PM

When you first start the game on console, your boost button is “b” on Xbox or “o” on PlayStation. You hit it accidentally and your a stain on the wall. Make sure to map the button as soon as you start!

ENDERS 2/16/2025, 1:33:38 PM

Recently I started using EDDiscovery and had watched a video where someone was talking about the FreeVoiceControl plugin/add-on so I decided to give it a try. After a couple long play sessions I had a very very customized FreeVoiceControl setup with most everything I could want to say bound to controls and macros.

So there I was about 1,000Ly from the edge of the Bubble and things seemed to be going great. I'd been using a Vulture with absolutely no shields or hardpoints for near-bubble exploration and exobio, mainly because I didn't want to be excessive with my personal fleet and would rather highly specialize one craft before even thinking about buying another. I do this with RPG characters and progression of them in almost every game I play, I only want to focus my time on one. The Vulture's jump range with non-engineered parts is plenty for me and my needs anyways. I hadn't caused myself much more than a couple percentages in hull damage after exploring for a couple days, so I was quite comfortable with the ship and build being vulnerable.

Some time around the third day of using the FreeVoiceControl Add-on I went in for a landing on a fairly normal looking HMC body. The Vulture is usually extremely easy to stop and slow for landing near the surface on most bodies anyways so I wasn't worried, I just wanted to get down there and scan the stuff. When I came out of my glide headed towards my target LZ I got a bit impatient with the remaining distance and began giving my verbal "Boost" command. I wasn't considering any risk because the Vulture and its current thrusters almost never struggle with anything. Shortly after I issued another boost command I saw it, a massive hill I didn't see on entry. This hill was lined up with my approach in a way where I almost couldn't tell there was a steep slope just beyond my LZ.

I realized I was coming in too hot and began to pull up while issuing all stop throttle and break commands verbally. I began slapping "X" and holding they "D" key to dethrottle as much as possible while also utilizing vertical thrust via the "R" key and issuing my verbal "Stop" command. Much to my dismay the distance remaining and the gravitational pull near the surface made both my stopping efforts and my effort to change trajectory upwards futile.

By issuing voice commands as opposed to manually controlling the ship and this coupled with the high gravity on the planet I was left with no feelers for what was about to happen... and so I watched in horror as my ship bounced off the hill in front of me like a stone skipping on water and slammed into the side of the next slope, exploding. I only later realized that I was in a situation where I was not controlling the ship enough to avoid a crash.

Graphic showing the Black Box report for the ship crash. Total data and discoveries lost totals around 37 million credits. — It wasn't a huge loss, but a lot of loss none the less.

Immediately after the rebuy I set back out, charting a course along the exact systems I had already just scanne and explored. It was a huge mistake and error on my part, and I paid the price while learning a couple valuble lessons in the process.

CMDR Henckes 2/13/2025, 7:28:10 PM

One of the most annoying and dumbest thing is to die booting to reach the surface of a planet faster, and this is one of the worst nightmares of explorers.

Imagine you are far from the bubble in the middle of the void, and find a nice planet to land and explorer, and you start descending to the surface to do exobiology scans but you need to save 5 seconds of your journey for soem reason and start boosting, now you are trying to get you ship off the collision course in a 1.5G planet, a few seconds later you are in a black screen saying you have died and need to pay the insurance and have lost all you cartography data that you have been getting together for 2 months.

lebiadkin 2/13/2025, 6:43:33 PM

Missing the controls when you are trying to land and crashing your spaceship in the ground.

Solaris104 2/13/2025, 2:35:22 PM

I don't know if I should tell you about this thing that happened to me also because it was a really particular death. I was with my ship that I had at the time the Diamondback Explorer now I'm using the Kraith MK and I was at the Jamson Crash Site farming materials I had almost finished collecting when suddenly I see a player land on the planet, I thought it was another player who came to farm resources, it had already happened to me another time, but instead he attacked my ship while I was on the SRV, panicked, I try to quickly return to the ship to escape because I had no way to counterattack, but I can't his battleship destroys my ship in which I even had 400 K of cartographic data to sell, since I knew the player who destroyed my ship his nickname was known to me, I wrote to him why he had attacked me, for him my nickname was familiar and then he had read Aisling Duval as a pledge and he attacked me. Unfortunately on the Diamondback I had no weapons to counterattack and so I tried to escape but without success, I died losing all the cartographic data - some resources collected at the Jamson Crash site as well as having to pay the rebuy of the ship.

CMDR James Lauer 2/13/2025, 1:31:50 PM

Hello CMDR's! Well: Never, and I really mean never go down the surface of a planet with your vertical thrusters before checking how strong the gravity is! In a small ship, with no shields, even a 0.30G can cause some damage or send you to a rescue drop pod! Imagine in a medium ship or a Type-9 full of cargo!
Real story: I was going to land at a settlement in Edenwi - Maeda Biochemical Forum - to update the network about commodities. They haven't had a visitor for a long time. Anyways, I decided to drop faster in my Diamondback Explorer "The Uploader", and then things started to descend to fast... I just didn't explode the ship 'cause I was fast enough to throttle a little up. Brought me down from 100 to 12% hull protection.

So I've put myself together and slowly parked the ship.

So CMDR's try to not blow up yourself because of a little haste and enjoy the scenery when you're almost ready to land!

Fly Safe! Have a great day!

Here are the wings that almost have blown away! Fly Safe!

EidLeWeise 2/11/2025, 10:45:42 PM

This has happened to me so many times. At a station and I take off, my throttle is set to full forward, and I RAM the building ahead of me on the bad, and then because I have far too low an attention span, I was alt tabbed and just scrolling, with my ship constantant nosing the building in front, loosing shield... loosing shield, loosing hull BOOM!

LiquidMorkite 2/11/2025, 10:17:04 AM

Hitting my vertical thrusters as I'm boosting out of the station on my thousand-light-year-weathered Mandalay. A 3D engineered shield was not enough to save it as I hit the upperpart of the mail slot with 560m/s. Was trying to keep it unharmed to wear the paintwork to 0%, I was half of the way, needless to say, I tried not to cry as I was being ejected from my burning ship, it hit so hard I could hear Corvax telling me my modules were damaged as the ship was burning. Well, another thousand light year expedition waiting ahead to see my Mandalay at 0% paintwork.

LeeeroyJenkins 2/10/2025, 5:36:02 AM

I used to bounty hunt with a group of pilots when I first started out. We would zip around in a HazRez with our Fer de Lances through the asteroids chasing down laser flashes in the distance trying to get in a few shots before the kill. Well, we usually played late and I had a bad habit of falling asleep while running full speed. Asteroid vs Fer de Lance at full throttle is definitely a one sided battle.....

ayebawl 2/10/2025, 1:42:22 AM

Dumb ways to Die, Elite version

Boost into a sun
Visit settlements holding a gun
Sit inside the mail slot
Visit Sol in a brand new yacht

Dumb ways to die
So many dumb ways to dieee...
Dumb ways to die-ie-ie
So many dumb ways to dieeeee

Splat yourself on a high grav moon
Go shieldless 'round a ganker baboon
Suffocate when out of gas
Ignore the signs of no trespass

Dumb ways to die
So many dumb ways to dieee...
Dumb ways to die-ie-ie
So many dumb ways to dieeeee

Melee attack a Goliath drone
Shoot lasers in the no fire zone
Give a Hydra a little kiss
Dodge a titan and completely miss

Doc 2/9/2025, 10:48:52 PM

Well, one of the classics is to not check the gravity of the planet when landing on it and just proceed without any caution. If the planet has a very high gravity, you do not deaccelerate as fast as on lower gravity planets. In fact, your ship gains velocity during the descent. So if your ship has lower hitpoints, see you into the rebuy screen after the touchdown😅😅

Dunescorpion037 1/27/2025, 2:25:29 PM

I was in my sidewinder, and I was landing on a planet. I was very new to the game, so I wasn't sure how to land properly. I continued to go up and land again to launch my SRV, thinking that I hadn't landed properly, getting increasingly frustrated. As it turns out, it's not good for your ship's hull to continually land at faster and faster speeds. RIP, sidewinder.

mastercesspit 1/26/2025, 11:36:28 PM

lose track of the controlling faction's attitude to you and have them turn hostile while docked at the station, you don't get to the mail slot, lol.

have fun 07

Élite Dangereuse 1/26/2025, 5:20:14 PM

https://clips.twitch.tv/embed?clip=DifferentNaiveEndiveDancingBanana-8fT3nSdkSLcgzt2N&parent=justabout.com&channel=elitedangereuse

One of the dumbest ways I’ve died in Elite Dangerous? My friend and I were experimenting with their brand-new Type-8, and I decided to hide in the access ramp as they took off. Spoiler alert: it didn’t end well for me.

CMDR I.N.K.V.I 1/26/2025, 3:44:00 AM

Greetings pilots

For me the stupidest way to die was not landing carefully on a planet without a shield, on a long expedition in search of exobiology. I had my first expedition then and I flew without even the simplest shield, then I miscalculated my landing speed and rammed into the surface of the planet, along with that I crashed my Diamondback Explorer.

XCezor 1/25/2025, 8:52:40 PM

First thing, about the video, I have never seen the original one but I do remember watching it's remix for the Portal game 😅

But now to the topic:

🎶Forget to deploy your lan-ding gear. Crashing on the landing pad.🎶

Vivisector 1/25/2025, 7:31:04 PM

I remember the fist time i've played elite dangerous and was about to start a new superpower jump, but didn't know i was in a planet's orbital area. So what happens? Of course my ship just start damaging until explode like a dumb idiot. Its ok anyway because was my fist time playing and of course some dumb things can happen, no? :D

LCU No Fool Like One 1/25/2025, 7:29:16 PM

I think it has to be from when I first started in the days before docking computers as standard. I had done my very first trip in my brand new sidewinder and I came in to dock at the station.

I didnt realise I was facing the wrong direction. I kept trying to touch down on the pad and nothing was working. Eventually I ran out of fuel and died.

MrT 1/24/2025, 2:18:20 AM

There are so many dumb ways to die in Elite Dangerous, it's quite hard to pick just one. The one I recall happening the most recent was when I was in a SRV on a planet. I had noticed my hull percentage was getting pretty low but decided to keep going anyway. I then just forgot all about it, another big jump and boom, my SRV blew up as it reached 0% hull.

Kethervir 1/23/2025, 2:02:34 PM

A really dumb way to die that i found is to trade value and rare commodities by removing all the modules to put as much cargo as possible leaving the ship without shields....especially without paying enough attention....one time happen to me.. I was once inside a space station and to speed up the takeoff process I accelerated a bit too much and got stuck in a terrible way at the entrance of the station.. result? my ship exploded shortly after, I got a nice fine, the reputation of the factions went down and I lost the unique cargo that multiple missions had given me, getting yet another fines for that.. so multiple fine, multiple reputation drop, i lost all of my discovery data (just that was several millions) and a nice expense to repurchase the ship.... I felt really dumb.. but i can say, i've lerned something

Niceygy 1/23/2025, 12:58:57 PM

Exploding yourself.

With a rocket launcher.

Right next to a exploding barrel.

Without shields turned on.

🤦‍♀️

Went out with a bang I suppose!

Deleted user 1/23/2025, 6:25:52 AM

A stupid no, super stupid way to die in Elite? Dropping out of supercruise at full speed straight into a space station and forgetting to slow down. :D

Imagine the scene: you're cruising along in your ship, all chill, delivering some cargo... and the next second, you're a fireworks show in space!

Stormseeker 1/23/2025, 4:35:39 AM

This happened to me a lot of times XD
I'm Streamer, and sometimes I'm in a station ready to go and someone ask me something and I just took off…

Well, I just get caught in answering my good audience and my sheep Is still inside the station with the 5-min counter going backward.

I think nah, I have 5 min, don't worry, I'll boost out the station just in time.

But my ship is still on top of the landing pad and loitering is not on my plans…

10 seconds later I'm on the rebuy screen XP

fly something like safe 07

AlvarZ4 1/23/2025, 12:37:55 AM

ENGLISH:
My squadron initiated the jump from the carrier, and I foolishly tried to see if hitting the carrier would kill me. Spoiler killed me. The funniest thing was that I tried to get back to the carrier from the prison ship, but just as I got there the platforms blocked. In short, I ended up dead and they were 500 light years away from me.😢
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ESPAÑOL:
Mi escuadrón inició el salto del portanaves, hice la insensatez de intentar ver si dandome de gólpes contra el portanaves me mataba. Spoiler me mató. Lo más gracioso fué que intenté volver al carrier desde la nave prisión, pero justo cuando llegué se bloquearon las plataformas. Total, yo acabé muerto y ellos a 500 años luz de mi posición.😢

mastercesspit 1/27/2025, 5:44:41 AM

AlvarZ4

i saw a squad member get crushed trying to land on the carrier when the landing pads locked down once, it was hilarious to watch, for us anyway, sort of karma in a way, he was a hopeless pilot, always delaying the squad with, "i can land without a docking computer" as i used to say, that might be right, but have a bit of consideration for your squad members who have to wait for you, anyway, most times he went to rebuy because the time ran out, and after the carrier incident, the entire squad voted to boot him, he never returned to the game sadly.

have fun 07

Block9 1/22/2025, 9:16:39 PM

When an NPC comes to scan you when you're in some settlement on the planet, just walk away and watch the magic happen... they'll just start shooting you just because you didn't let him scan you.

It reminded me of only one thing, "Hey commander, a scan or a mysterious shot? 🔫"

XCezor 1/25/2025, 8:36:31 PM

Block9

Actually there's a funny bug. When NPC tries to scan you, simple switch your energy link to taser mode. They will tell you to not do that and they'll stop trying to scan you for a few seconds. Then you can escape without any fine :D

Block9 1/26/2025, 9:50:05 AM

XCezor

I tried to do this and they shot me 🤣🤣

mastercesspit 1/27/2025, 5:47:13 AM

Block9

yep

Rac 1/22/2025, 4:30:10 PM

A really stupid way to die that also takes a bit of the fun out of the game is called White Dwarf!

After 3 months of exploration and exobiology ... the call came from the squadron that help was urgently needed in the BGS.

Neutron jumps were made until the final boss arrived, the white dwarf.

Normally with stars the area in which you shouldn't fly is shown, with white dwarfs it's a bit bigger, but this area wasn't shown to me and suddenly I was hanging in the tail, in normal space, watching my ship slowly fall apart.

Another stupid way to die:

Annoying streamers who are doing their moderation at a station in the bar and you are constantly honking there .... stupid only if you accidentally fire your weapons and die faster than you can shout “nooooooooooo”.

MQC 1/22/2025, 12:44:30 AM

I have a Type-9 set up to run trade routes without any internal modules, i.e. no shields, assist systems, vehicles, etc... just dedicating all the capacity to cargo bays.

Once, between routes, I came across a signal from a mega-ship asking for help because it was under attack, and I went over to look, thinking I could pick up escape pods... as soon as I arrived and approached the mega-ship, the ship's hud warned me of a dangerous presence, Thargoids... and I, with a Type-9 without shields and extremely heavy and slow, instead of fleeing as fast as I could, I tried to rescue the people...

I don't think I lasted two seconds when the Thargoid attacked. Yeah, it was definitely one of the biggest dumbest things I've ever done in a game.

Children, stay away from the Thargoids if you are not minimally prepared.

St4r_Lord 1/21/2025, 8:18:32 PM

Crashing into the wall of the station after boosting to the entrance, I think everyone has experienced this even if it didn't end in death

Akemi_Whitacre 1/21/2025, 6:14:14 PM

Being squashed by your own recalled ship ranks pretty high up there, I'd have to say.

kinito00 1/21/2025, 6:11:50 PM

I once stood on top of a geyser and flew about 250 meters off the ground and ended up dying from the fall, it was quite funny.

CelestialFlea 1/21/2025, 5:32:38 PM

Ah well this is an easy one but I think we've all been there and we can all relate. I think I may have posted this in a different thread before, but it's definitely the dumbest way I've died.

So imagine this; You've been away from the game for over a year. You buy yourself a type-9 with some of the credits you've gathered. But you need better cargo racks, so a quick hop to a neighbouring station shouldn't be a big deal, right? WRONG.

In my year or more of absence, I'd completely forgotten the controls and I couldn't even get the damn thing through the hole (quiet you lot!), so I somehow got my fat ass stuck in the hole against the outer railing, station security yelling at me, my ship yelling at me..and then station security taking care of the blockage.

A costly and very dumb way to die indeed.

Alec_Turner 1/21/2025, 4:23:02 PM

Trying to catch your own SRV when it falls from a great height!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/CjYYt2hBWTY?feature=oembed

USCSS 1/21/2025, 4:18:36 PM

Hello Commanders

I usually take precautions when I go out with my ship. I put some decent shields on it so it doesn't get damaged. But despite that, one time something strange happened to me. It was a stupid death but also a strange one. With my ship, which I don't remember which one it was, I landed on a planet. I had to do things at home. I thought that just leaving the ship landed on the planet wouldn't cause any problems since the planet was desolate. When I finished doing my things I went back to the PC and the screen said that I had died and the ship had been destroyed. From then on, whenever I go to do some activity at home, I exit the game to the main menu.

Now, why was the ship destroyed? I have no idea.

But I have two hypotheses:

1) Since the ship was on a bubble planet, maybe some pirate appeared on the surface of the planet and with his ship destroyed mine.

2) Maybe it ran out of fuel because even when it lands on the planet, it consumes very little fuel to keep some modules running, like life support.

And that was the dumbest death I've ever had.

(Translated with Google Translate)

mastercesspit 1/27/2025, 5:57:09 AM

USCSS

check your codex, it'll give you the name of the cmdr or npc that killed you, it'd be a player landed on a planet, there was a cmdr on xbox that got his whole combat rank just killing landed ships at dav's hope, and ganking noobs at aye indy.

Wadd Enderas 1/21/2025, 3:06:29 PM

I don't have tremendous experience with the game, but I tried to land on a planetary station without the use of auto-docking. I missed the landing pad by a little bit and bumped a nearby building a couple of times. I immediately had a bounty assigned and before I could really regain control of my craft and lift off again, I was being shot and destroyed.

TrialByStory 1/21/2025, 2:24:12 PM

When I built out my first proper trading vessel, I did the whole 'let's properly research,' thing and looked up what kind of lucrative routes/loops I could do with my fancy new frameshift drive and it's almost doubled jump range. Then I flew to the appropriate station, got myself all loaded up, and set out across the galaxy. Partway through my journey to the station I'm planning on selling to, I do my next jump then get up to grab a drink. What should be a 30 second task takes a bit longer when one of my roommates has something to talk to me about, and when I got back to my console, I was out of frameshift and piloting straight towards a sun while my ship screamed at me as it took overheat damage.

But I heroically pulled up in time and carried on my way, making the wise choice of finding a station to repair at....and on my way there I got interdicted and the lack of defensive options I'd given my slow, heavy transport, combined with the damage from the impromptu solar viewing, meant that I was easy pickings. Not a great maiden voyage for that particular ship, but it had many successful ventures after that.

Psykokow 1/21/2025, 12:50:25 PM

Ok this annoyed me sooo much, more so than docking without shields and losing a months exploration data. More than forgetting personal shields when getting into a fight in a ground base... More than landing on a high G planet.

My single most dumb way to die was 5 hours of Xeno biology scanning, finally got the last plant scanned... recalled my annaconda..

I jumped to keep clear of the ship, but seemed to be stuck under something, pushing me down towards the surface. pop

So,,, my recalled annaconda landed on me.. Lost 5 hours of work... was furious.

Other dumb ways, in a dolphin, on a convoy.. my cargo hatch failed... so a friend said he would ram the cargo out of my ship..

Large golden glow later.,.. and a nice rebuild screen appears for us both.

No idea if my cargo came out or not....

Doc 1/22/2025, 2:00:08 AM

Psykokow

I understand what you mean. I did almost the same when I was going to Colonia, but in my case I was in my SRV and decided to explore an asteroid impact crater but did not realize that it was really deep and high angle, so when the SRV started to go down I lost control and fell until I finally exploded into the bottom of the crater after days of collecting exobiology data, lol 🤣🤣

GoJapan 2/13/2025, 5:02:40 PM

the first time I played Elite Dangerous after completing the tutorial, I started to explore some systems but not knowing the game well, and understand the distances between the ship and the star, but the ship always entered the orbit of the star but this ended up overheating the ship until it exploded completely.

projectazone 2/14/2025, 12:49:39 PM

How to die in elite dangerous is really easy, once i died attacking a ship without knowing it was well equipped and it completely destroyed my ship forcing me to rebouy

Hunter 2/22/2025, 1:08:15 PM

Sometimes, in Elite Dangerous, the real enemy isn’t pirates or Thargoids… it’s your own greed. I was just trying to take the perfect screenshot while deep-core mining, but instead, I ended up as space debris. Lesson learned: screenshots can wait!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/0CSxWsfKa_E?feature=oembed

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