Greetings, Commanders!
IRL I am John, from Philadelphia, PA USA. I'm a lifelong gamer and remember the original Elite many years ago. Right now I play STO regularly (or at least did before becoming obsessed with E:D). I also play LOTRO and GW2 somewhat less frequently. Just finished Witcher 3 before starting Elite as part of going through my bought-but-not-yet-played games on Steam.
In game, I am interested in experiencing the Elite universe in a more cooperative environment. I've made Elite in Trade, almost there in Exploration, and Combat is going to take much longer. I just finished unlocking all the Guardian tech. I'm considering my first long-haul exploration run, but I'll probably hunt down all the codex entries in my region first. Lately I'm slicing and dicing the eddb feeds in python and jupyter along with playing the same. And, of course, I have spreadsheets. Lots of spreadsheets.
I discovered ElitePVP from, of all places, The Yamiks YouTube channel while trying to figure out if there's any real value in playing in open and if cooperative play is worthwhile in Elite.