Rules, Info, and FAQ

Welcome

We're a non-partisan group dedicated to repairing damaged stations.

To help you get started with what we do and where to find things on our discord below you will find a quick intro/FAQ.

Thank you for joining and for any help you can provide! We hope you enjoy your time being part of Operation Ida and getting involved in the amazing work that we do!

How can I help?

It's easy! Bring specific goods to the damaged station we're currently working on and sell them in the Commodities Market. We maintain a list of the needed commodities in the discord channel #whats-left-to-haul. It doesn't matter which platform or game mode you're in; it all helps!

We make extensive use of fleet carriers as they are more efficient and allow us to guarantee profit for our haulers. You can see what carriers are active, where they are located, and what commodities they are hauling in #find-a-carrier . If you want to use your carrier to help, please contact any member of @The Management or @Coordinator team and let them know you want to donate your carrier to the cause. After that you will be given the @Ida-Approved Carrier Operator role and gain access to the #carrier-dispatch channel.

You can also help keep us keep track of deliveries by posting what you've delivered in our Deliveries channel; it's the channel that starts with "deliveries-for-" in the Objectives section. There's a pinned post there with the accepted post formats if you need it. Please remember to only post deliveries to the current repair target station, not any other damaged station or while loading carriers. Once posted our delivery-managing discord bot @The Bot That Actually Runs Ida will react to your delivery with an “ok hand”reaction to show it has accepted the delivery. If you did something wrong the bot will reply and ask you to edit your message. Upon reporting your first delivery you will be given the @Hauler role.

Where can I get more details?

We have a number of discord channels in the Objectives section with various bits of info.

  • #whats-left-to-haul -- Estimated amount of remaining commodities needed for repairs (and where you can buy them).

  • #find-a-carrier -- Active carriers, including locations, loading/unloading status, and commodities being hauled.

  • #carrier-dispatch -- Carrier assignment coordination, to avoid 3 carriers heading out to pick up something we only need one carrier load of. Contact our coordinator staff if you wish to use your own carrier to haul and we'll give you the role you need to post here and in #find-a-carrier, but make sure you have lots of cargo space first!

  • #daily-updates -- We post the current repair target's status every 12 hours. We also have an awfulamazing spreadsheet. It rocks. Even more than a landslide of boulders. You can check it out at https://www.operationida.com/main-spreadsheet and each station has its own sheet linked from there!

  • #tasklist -- Priority hauling work as well as group-wide hauling tips

  • #operation-ida-chat -- Main chat channel. Operation Ida and Elite:Dangerous topics only please

  • #ida-waffle-bar -- All topics, Elite:Dangerous and otherwise (the beryllium waffles are delicious!)

  • #ed-ship-stuff -- Recommended ship builds (in the pinned posts) and occasional in-depth discussions about module loadouts

  • #bot-stats -- Get your hauling stats from the bot that's logging your reported deliveries; type "help" for a command list

Rules

In order to encourage a healthy community, we ask that you keep the following rules in mind:

  • BE NICE! This means that calm and friendly debates/discussions are okay, but arguments and name-calling and personal attacks are not. We're all here to have fun and fix stations, and we don't like it when somebody ruins someone else's fun in the game or in real life (seriously, flying in Open is risky so don't complain if you do it and die, but saying someone deserved it just for flying in Open isn't cool either). The "chat topic guidelines" below contain more thoughts about how to abide by this rule. When in doubt, actively avoid looking like a jerk.

    • 1a. "Be nice" also means "please don't use our server to plan attacks of any kind against other players or player groups, or recruit for said plans", because doing that here can cause those actions to reflect poorly on Operation Ida. Members of our in-game squadron should also think about how their in-game actions could be interpreted since our name shows up next to yours. If you feel the need to leave the squadron for any reason, we will welcome you back anytime

  • Follow staff instructions regarding the Discord server

  • Do not post invites to Discord servers or other communities without getting permission from staff FIRST

  • Practice voice chat etiquette: Mind your background noise and check your mic volume (Discord voice settings can let you hear what your mic is picking up)

  • English only in main chat, please. This is so that our moderators can properly do their job

Chat Topic Guidelines

While we are not saying "don't talk about these topics at all", please be careful when talking about controversial stuff like politics, religion, alcohol, recreational drugs, sex, etc. This especially applies for anything that is likely illegal in some regions or countries, as well as anything that commonly causes discussions to spiral downward into shouting matches.

Please try to stick to the spirit of the rules and not just the letter of them. If we draw a line in the sand, we would like you to keep a respectable distance from that line rather than trying to get as close as you can without crossing it. We don't want to be legalistic and write out every possible bad thing someone might do on the server, because we don't really like being chat moderators and would much rather play the game and have fun with all of you, but as the group coordinators we have a responsibility to all of our members to keep the chat channels friendly and welcoming for everyone and we will take action if necessary.

But what if somebody ignores the rules anyway? If someone is breaking the rules (or trying to get as close to the line as they can), they will usually get a warning first. If they continue breaking rules (not necessarily the same rule each time) they will be muted for both text and voice chat for a period of time. Hopefully that will get their attention, but if they continue breaking rules then they will be banned from the server. We reserve the right to skip straight to mutes and/or bans if we think the situation warrants it.

Please note that muted people are still allowed to send messages in the delivery-logging channels, but using those channels to get around being muted will almost certainly get you banned. Please don't do that.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have a Private Group? Yes we do, on both PC and Xbox! To join, go to Main Menu > Social, then search for "Operation Ida" and reqeust to join the group. We compare CMDR name to the Discord, so please either set a nickname here or let us know your name when you apply Please note that our PGs are consent-only PVP zones. If players engage in combat without agreeing to it before opening fire, the aggressor risks being banned from the PG and possibly the Discord server (which means no more delivery logging), even if the non-aggressor shoots back AND regardless of who dies (including if nobody dies); this also applies to intentionally ramming another player and in cases of repeated and/or gross negligence. We will consider the context of each individual incident and overall history of all involved before taking action since NPC flight skills and ATC are both terrible, it's easy to miss someone on radar until after you press Boost, and occasional joking potshots between friends do happen.

...Just be careful out there and you should be fine, okay?

What does "Ida" mean? It's to do with a Greek myth connected with Zeus - when he shook the Aegis from Mount Ida it created thunder. For many of us, it also represents the mountain of stuff we have to haul!

Is it "IDA" or "I.D.A." or "Ida"? It's definitely "Ida", with an uppercase "I" and lowercase "da", pronounced something like "eye-dah" (ˈaɪdə if you like phonetics). It's not an abbreviation for anything, and we aren't related in any way to the Independent Defense Agency (I.D.A. or IDA) player group, though they've worked with us a bit.