f13.net

f13.net General Forums => Gaming => Topic started by: Trippy on November 05, 2012, 05:03:52 PM



Title: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on November 05, 2012, 05:03:52 PM
Yes, this is what it sounds like, a new Elite game by one of the original developers as a Kickstarter project.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on November 05, 2012, 05:08:25 PM
I guess the other guy is too busy doing naked UV body art photography to get back in on this with him.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: eldaec on November 06, 2012, 12:15:11 AM
I dunno, doesn't feel like he knows what he wants to do with this.

Elite, but with a single player campaign, already exists in X.

Elite, but an mmo with player economy, also exists as Eve.

Not sure if the world needs vanilla Elite. Basically this needs an idea to make me notice him.

Frontier was Elite, only with a more neckbeardy flight model. Don't need that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 06, 2012, 01:11:41 AM
Elite, but an mmo with player economy, also exists as Eve.

If he ships an MMO/multiplayer Elite with something like the original twitch based controls, that's all the difference to Eve that will get me to play.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 06, 2012, 01:55:01 AM
So there's a video interview with David Braben on the BBC (which also includes a hint of footage from the game in the background plus one of the game artists winking at the camera  :awesome_for_real: ) where he explains that using Kickstarter to fund this is a way of gauging market demand and potentially bypassing a publisher. Video here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20165344).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on November 06, 2012, 02:12:28 AM
I dunno, doesn't feel like he knows what he wants to do with this.

Elite, but with a single player campaign, already exists in X.


Well, see, if he could make that game, but fun, I'd be pretty pleased.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on November 06, 2012, 05:02:15 AM
Elite never really had a campaign though, the original only had something like 6 missions (think I only got to the second one) once you hit the higher ranks.

Frontier and First Encounters both had optional plots that you sort of stumbled into by accident (and could just as easily stumble out of and had finite time windows) and both were horribly bug ridden (think the Publisher was to thank for that).

I'd like to see this but I think Chris Roberts is going to beat him to the punch with pretty much the same game.

All we need now is for X Rebirth to have a persistant online element (which I don't think is in the design anyway) or X Online to be [re]announced


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on November 06, 2012, 06:03:38 AM
I'd probably pledge some money if it weren't David Braben asking for it. I won't support a guy though, that has screwed up and/or severly delayed every project that he was involved in after the original Elite. I also won't support a guy that has screwed over his business partner and kept him from receiving any financial comp for co-creating and co-developing Elite.

Every Braben game after Elite was a disaster, Raspberry Pi is a disaster (one where people have even been defrauded out of money by his distributor). A guy with that kind of track record doesn't deserve my money.

That's as if Uwe Boll was asking for donations to make another movie.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: UnSub on November 06, 2012, 06:07:44 AM
Brabben has been trying to get Elite IV made for over a decade. This is just yet another step in that process and not one that inspires any confidence in me.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tebonas on November 06, 2012, 06:10:45 AM
Personally I liked Zarch (yes my father had an Archimedes at work).

But I think Chris Roberts has that genre covered.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sky on November 06, 2012, 07:05:42 AM
Maybe he can get together with Mr and Mrs Romero.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 06, 2012, 07:14:29 AM
I'd probably pledge some money if it weren't David Braben asking for it. I won't support a guy though, that has screwed up and/or severly delayed every project that he was involved in after the original Elite. I also won't support a guy that has screwed over his business partner and kept him from receiving any financial comp for co-creating and co-developing Elite.

Every Braben game after Elite was a disaster, Raspberry Pi is a disaster (one where people have even been defrauded out of money by his distributor). A guy with that kind of track record doesn't deserve my money.

That's as if Uwe Boll was asking for donations to make another movie.

Just because you say it, doesn't make it true. The Braben/Bell dispute was not solely on the side of Braben. Bell sold his rights to the Elite sequels because he didn't want to work on them. He claimed royalties on the first sequel but waived royalties on any expansions or subsequent sequels. That was a poor decision on his part and he cried foul when Braben released First Encounters because it meant few copies of Frontier being sold. But Braben, while arguably being a bit of a dick by not developing any expansions for Frontier, didn't do anything wrong and didn't deprive Bell of any royalties that he was owed from either Elite or Frontier. Braben sued Bell for libel in 1995 because of things Braben wrote/said in interviews.  (Braben's 99 FAQ - hosted on Ian Bell's site (http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/archive/b9101100.htm) - 1995 interview with Bell (http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/archive/b5081501.htm))

Later on it appeared that Bell had sold his rights to Elite to a third party and there were certain copyright issues regarding the distribution of the Elite binaries. Some point the finger at Braben for a C&D letter to the developer of "Elite: The New Kind" as clamping down on 3rd party redevelopment. This is, again, only half the truth - there was a very restrictive 3rd party EULA attached to TNK which Braben couldn't ignore. After all, OOlite (http://www.oolite.org) is still very visibly up and running and available because it's distributed under a GPL.

Braben's subsequent games (Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, Thrillville, LostWinds 1 & 2, Kinectimals), while hardly being the type of games to cater for people on this site, have, for the most part, all been critically well received. I don't really like using metacritic as a judgment of this but look em up - the consensus seems generally favourable so why you're saying "every game was a disaster" I don't know. Were they delayed or late? Well, The Outsider was all but cancelled and Elite IV has never happened but everything else? Looks like they've delivered most of them.

As for Raspberry Pi, I'm intrigued by your claims about people being defrauded (out of, what? $35?) so maybe you could back that up with sources.

Facts are good.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Stormwaltz on November 06, 2012, 07:37:53 AM
X, EVE, Star Citizen...

It's not that Elite is too similar to other space sims, it's that Elite inspired most other space sims.

I think this game would have to reinvent the genre from the ground up to not be accused of doing the same thing others are.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on November 06, 2012, 08:06:12 AM
I guess the other guy is too busy doing naked UV body art photography to get back in on this with him.
Wait, you're making an Elite game?

I've got the X series and RSI to look forward to.  If it's good, I'll get this, but I don't seem much reason to kickstart this one.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Amaron on November 06, 2012, 12:02:49 PM
Why does this Kickstarter exist?  Elite is the polar opposite of expensive.  So cheap to produce that even X3 made a tidy profit.  I find it a bit sketchy that they couldn't afford to make it themselves.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mrbloodworth on November 06, 2012, 12:07:17 PM
Elite was cool. However, I'm not sure how you go from Elite - > Modern game. When so many games have already come and gone that do it better in between. There isn't even an art style to carry over..


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Nebu on November 06, 2012, 12:23:04 PM
If he ships an MMO/multiplayer Elite with something like the original twitch based controls, that's all the difference to Eve that will get me to play.

If this were to happen, I'd quit my job and move back into my mother's basement. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on November 06, 2012, 12:34:04 PM
Elite was cool. However, I'm not sure how you go from Elite - > Modern game. When so many games have already come and gone that do it better in between. There isn't even an art style to carry over..

I think I'd just accept an updated version of First Encounters at this point (without the crippling physics model and game breaking bugs)

I'm struggling to think of any addition there's been to the X games after X-Tension added the ability to fly different/multiple ships beyond graphics updates and new/different plot/missions


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on November 06, 2012, 12:37:49 PM
I guess the other guy is too busy doing naked UV body art photography to get back in on this with him.
Wait, you're making an Elite game?

Yeah I did kind of groan inwardly when I saw this project, luckily it is the other dude.  :-P


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on November 06, 2012, 05:19:44 PM
Why does this Kickstarter exist?

:why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: eldaec on November 07, 2012, 02:11:06 AM
Any minute now EA will buy the rights and remake Elite as a cover based shooter.

'Reintroducing this classic franchise to the console generation'


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Furiously on November 07, 2012, 01:32:09 PM
Oolite looks pretty decent.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on November 07, 2012, 02:30:56 PM
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/85916/productsdark02.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Furiously on November 07, 2012, 03:06:30 PM
http://www.oolite.org/ (http://www.oolite.org/)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on November 07, 2012, 03:28:11 PM
But my delicates!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on November 07, 2012, 03:38:44 PM
http://www.oolite.org/ (http://www.oolite.org/)

Graphically that looks like Archimedes Elite, considered the best version, which I picked as my avatar a few days ago (must have felt an Elite revival coming on).

There are all sorts of things mentioned in the original manual and novella The Dark Wheel that could be included in a modern elite, such as Generation Ships (huge things I kept hoping to encounter on my C64 but never did... because they're a myth) and space hermits living on asteroids.

P.S. Ian Bell's insane website has a record of a legal dispute between him and Braben (http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/cix/index.htm).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Amaron on November 07, 2012, 03:46:10 PM
Graphically that looks like Archimedes Elite, considered the best version, which I picked as my avatar a few days ago (must have felt an Elite revival coming on).

You have to look at the "expansion packs".   Seems like they keep the default graphics spartan on purpose.




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on January 03, 2013, 05:20:29 AM
Looks like they managed to hit the funding target with just over 48 hours left.

While I am happy for the project I feel it hit target in spite of itself, and is a good example of how not to launch a kickstarter.

Now all they need to do is deliver it!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: VainEldritch on January 04, 2013, 02:23:01 AM
Braben is talking billions of star systems.

"I know it sounds absurd, and were it from another man, you'd cry out "Oh, what pitiful stuff!" and dismiss it as mere enthusiasm." But with Braben... 

I pledged.

Big.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on January 04, 2013, 02:27:27 AM
I didn't pledge but that's because of this coming at the wrong time for my wallet. Also, while I really like how the updates have gone and what they've shown and what they're talking about, I kind of what them to deliver on their promises first before parting with money.

But I loved the fact that there were several interviews with both him and Chris Roberts during the updates.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 04, 2013, 04:20:26 AM
Braben is talking billions of star systems.

"I know it sounds absurd, and were it from another man, you'd cry out "Oh, what pitiful stuff!" and dismiss it as mere enthusiasm." But with Braben... 

I pledged.

Big.

But those are going to be randomly generated, so where's the appeal of that? Or are we talking about real names and data from real stars in our galaxy? Also, in human (and player) terms, what's the difference between billions of systems and a hundred thousand systems? Or even a simple thousand systems?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: K9 on January 04, 2013, 04:42:00 AM
Agreed, sheer quantity without any differentiating substance doesn't hold much appeal to me. I would rather have a smaller-yet-structured space sandbox environment.

Still, it is nice to see the space sim coming back. If Valve's Stars of Barathrum project turns out to be a space sim that will be another thing I shall have to look forward to as well.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: jakonovski on January 04, 2013, 05:07:16 AM
The best thing is randomly generated billions of star systems, in which you nest the hand made content in clever ways. Kind of like the real thing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Bzalthek on January 04, 2013, 08:08:27 AM
I really like the idea of a basically boundless random universe.  Gives off that whole "I wonder what I'll find".  The problem I have in most games attempting that is there's only a few "finds" which are worth anything and a whole shitpot full of crap no one wants. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Thrawn on January 04, 2013, 08:22:54 AM
Didn't pledge because I was unsure and nothing in the rewards was tempting.  No bonus stuff or backer rewards other than saving a name and a decal to put on a ship.  I figure if the game does end up being really good I can just pick it up on sale cheaper than the Kickstarter tier was shortly after release anyways.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: VainEldritch on January 04, 2013, 08:52:52 AM
I really like the idea of a basically boundless random universe.  Gives off that whole "I wonder what I'll find". 

That's exactly it for me.

I care not one jot that it will procedurally generated, because:

The best thing is randomly generated billions of star systems, in which you nest the hand made content in clever ways. Kind of like the real thing.

PG has come a long way since Elite through FFE and the aforementioned "nesting" (presumably including some of the player-scripted stories) will I suspect make the universe interesting. Heck I spent hours exploring distant systems in my Thargoid ship just because the whole cosmos felt limitless.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on January 04, 2013, 08:53:46 AM
But those are going to be randomly generated, so where's the appeal of that? Or are we talking about real names and data from real stars in our galaxy? Also, in human (and player) terms, what's the difference between billions of systems and a hundred thousand systems? Or even a simple thousand systems?

Bearing in mind that the original Elite had 2048 planets (on an 8k machine) and Frontier had an astouding amount (offically claimed to be over 100,000,000 and calculated to be something like 513,982,470 according to some delving around in the source code (http://www.jongware.com/galaxy1.html)), a game with only a 1000 systems would not be an Elite game. And yeah, there will be some pre-populated systems like Lave, Leesti, Riedquat, Diso and so on but I can't remember if Braben said that our Milky Way would feature again. Apparently Imperial and Federation space will make an appearance so Achenar is probably going to resurface.

In terms of difference to a player? Well, as someone better than me once said:

Quote
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemists, but that's just peanuts to space.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sky on January 04, 2013, 09:01:17 AM
I really like the idea of a basically boundless random universe.  Gives off that whole "I wonder what I'll find".  The problem I have in most games attempting that is there's only a few "finds" which are worth anything and a whole shitpot full of crap no one wants. 
This is one of those times where we agree completely. I love huge games and lots of exploration...but there needs to be things to find or it's just wandering around aimlessly.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mrbloodworth on January 04, 2013, 09:03:53 AM
I.. can't find whats interesting about this title.

NVM, some of the newer videos do show some interesting things.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 04, 2013, 10:51:35 AM
Ok, let me be clearer. I absolutely LOVE the idea of limitless universes, all the things you described, the "I wonder what I'll find... " feeling and the idea of nestled things here and there, are amazing to me. I grew up on Elite and Frontier as you did.

I just think you are underestimating the concept of "billions". Procedurally/Randomly populate such a mindboggling space will eventually make it... all... the... same. Let's not forget that we grew up, and what was amazing in the 80s and the 90s is so often the subject of criticism these days (poor UIs, no tutorials, obscure mechanics, etc..). So while I remember exactly why I loved the immensity of Frontier, and why I still feel a tingle just by thinking of it, I am a little skeptical about my ability to fall in love for a modern game with billions of randomly rehashed worlds and quests. How to give them any personality? How to feel, now in 2012, that I am actually moving in this virtual universe of billions of stars, instead of just having the algorithm throwing at me random cluster of planets/missions after random cluster of planets/missions giving back an actual feeling of moving (because it's too big for any movement through it to be noticeable)? That said I am not arguing with you guys, and I'm more than open to see how it'll come out and if possible fall in love all over again times a billion. Especially because I do not think that you either handcraft a hundred planets or you can't do space. I just noticed that advertising a game for "100k stars" oddly impresses me more than for shouting for "billions".


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Paelos on January 04, 2013, 10:59:04 AM
Wasn't one of the tenets of Spore a limitless universe?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sky on January 04, 2013, 11:44:42 AM
Wasn't one of the tenets of Spore a limitless universe?
I don't know, I never got past the nagging popups and pirate attacks that kept shitting up my sandbox. Even with its flaws, I enjoyed the game until it nagged me into never playing it again.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mrbloodworth on September 14, 2013, 06:55:09 AM
Quote
A new video of space trading sim Elite: Dangerous has drawn my normally stoic eyebrow into a firmly raised and locked position with its gorgeous depiction of sci-fi dogfighting in deep space. You may remember Elite as the Kickstarted Space Sim That Isn’t Star Citizen, but for a trailer this good I’m willing to reallocate some enthusiasm. (http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/09/13/elite-dangerous-trailer-shows-off-deep-space-slugfest-mercenary-pilots-jumping-in-to-help/)

Capital Ship Battle Video  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE8B4KptyVI&feature=youtu.be)

While awesome, the above is Renderd.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on September 14, 2013, 07:39:14 AM
Awesome. Considering this video, and Braben's past achievements, I am angry I can't throw 500£ at this game right now  :why_so_serious:

EDIT: Looks like I could, actually. (http://elite.frontier.co.uk/register/#.UjR3BMZM_ec) Anyway, they raised 3 million dollars so far. Not too bad.


More seriously, I am absolutely looking forward to this as I am looking forward to Star Citizen. It is just too bad that the latter completely stole this one's thunder, and it's most likely not going to give it back, not even a bit.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Stormwaltz on September 14, 2013, 02:04:29 PM
Capital Ship Battle Video  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE8B4KptyVI&feature=youtu.be)

While awesome, the above is Renderd.

I also found it disappointing. The fighters were okay, sure, and clearly that's what they wanted you to focus on. But I sincerely hope the capital ship combat is not that sort of "park two stationary objects next to each other and have them shoot each other until one blows up." No maneuvering, no tactics - they're not much more interactive than the planet in the background. Hardly an inspiring setup.

Even a Roman admiral, whose idea of naval tactics didn't go much beyond "let's make some artificial land so we can stab each other on the water," would have facepalmed at that. I really hope that's not indicative of how the final game plays.

More seriously, I am absolutely looking forward to this as I am looking forward to Star Citizen. It is just too bad that the latter completely stole this one's thunder, and it's most likely not going to give it back, not even a bit.

I backed SC rather than Elite solely based on "preparedness." Roberts came in with a pitch, a list of goals, and demonstrable assets. Braben came in with, "Hey, I thought I'd remake Elite." I'm exaggerating for humor, but at the time it felt like one was a plan and the other an idea.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on September 14, 2013, 04:01:01 PM
No worries, I'm here ! Let me equip my money launcher  :grin: :why_so_serious:

I'm eagerly waiting for this too: after all, I grew up listening to the "Blue Danube" beep on the Atari ST while desperately trying to approach a Coriolis station  :heart:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on September 16, 2013, 04:40:46 AM
More seriously, I am absolutely looking forward to this as I am looking forward to Star Citizen. It is just too bad that the latter completely stole this one's thunder, and it's most likely not going to give it back, not even a bit.

I backed SC rather than Elite solely based on "preparedness." Roberts came in with a pitch, a list of goals, and demonstrable assets. Braben came in with, "Hey, I thought I'd remake Elite." I'm exaggerating for humor, but at the time it felt like one was a plan and the other an idea.

When this hit KS I thought "No way this isn't hitting target" but I seem to recall it barely dragged itself over the finish line. While SC was a really hard act to follow Braben just came across as not having put much/anyt thought into it at all and rather than reward early backers (with alpha/beta access as with SC) Braben charged extra for it - I backed at 'release price' and I'm not really getting anything for that I wouldn't get had I just waited for retail.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mrbloodworth on September 16, 2013, 08:21:12 AM
I also believe Roberts tried to kick some attention to this games kickstarter. But for me, it really does come down to what storm just said, Roberts was simply more prepared and came with more on his plate before asking for money.

It would be wonderful if the two just worked together.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on September 21, 2013, 02:02:37 AM
I grew up playing the original from a tape deck on a Commodore 64. I sank many months into it, but I never even made Elite - I was the rank before, whether it was Deadly or Dangerous I can't remember. I sold second-hand early D&D Dragonlance modules (then current) to other nerds at school to raise money to buy the game, thinking it would impress my Traveller-playing friends... then I realised it was a solo activity. But I played it anyway :)

First real "open world" thing I experienced. And it was actually "open universe". I think they should remake this in wireframe, but wireframe for 2014. There's no shame in wireframe - it's a bit like black-and-white photography. It was about the gameplay.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 03, 2013, 08:15:36 AM
Dev Diary #6 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4-gyDLRMXg).

Yum.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 27, 2013, 09:28:10 AM
Dev Diary #8. Cockpit, UI, HUD, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6WmsnwNq98) etc. I skipped the #7, it was just Braben talking.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 27, 2013, 03:10:07 PM
This is due to be hitting Alpha soon - as in next month, I believe.  I may still yet donate to this one - even more so after seeing the Devs using a proper flightstick set up rather than, well, a gamepad.  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on November 27, 2013, 03:18:43 PM
Looking goooood  :awesome_for_real: . For the HUD, it looks like they're going down the "holographic" route, just like SC. Can't wait for this either.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 12, 2013, 05:48:04 AM
Meanwhile in the UK, Elite Dangerous released the "Dogfighting module" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-ykj3-q40A) to the alpha backers.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on December 12, 2013, 06:36:51 AM
 :yahoo: :yahoo: Keep an eye on Twitch: some alpha backers should stream later today:

http://www.twitch.tv/kerrashlanding
http://twitch.tv/sharpshifter
http://www.twitch.tv/Zallestial
http://nl.twitch.tv/nattehond/
http://twitch.tv/elitedangerous

Me, I'll have to wait for beta :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on December 12, 2013, 06:50:20 AM
Cool.

Although if you can't change the colour of the cockpit HUD to be the same blue and red scheme you get in a VW Golf, then this game is dead to me.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on December 12, 2013, 07:50:57 AM
http://it.twitch.tv/kerrashlanding is streaming right now  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on December 17, 2013, 08:56:29 AM
RPS did a little preview of the pre-alpha alpha and thought it was in pretty good shape. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/12/13/hands-on-with-elite-dangerous/)

I can't help myself and have been watching a load of videos of people playing on YouTube either. People seem to uniformly like it so far, given it's nothing more than a series of 8 combat encounters in a single ship.

Disappointed there's no hangar module though.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on December 17, 2013, 08:58:45 AM
RPS did a little preview of the pre-alpha alpha and thought it was in pretty good shape. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/12/13/hands-on-with-elite-dangerous/)

I can't help myself and have been watching a load of videos of people playing on YouTube either. People seem to uniformly like it so far, given it's nothing more than a series of 8 combat encounters in a single ship.

Disappointed there's no hangar module though.  :oh_i_see:

Needs more green  :grin: . But yeah, alpha has been very well received, people are quite surprised by the level of polish the game is already showing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 17, 2013, 09:04:33 AM
I watched some streams, starting with the one you posted Lucas. It looks really nice, and in many ways it looks like MechWarrior in space, HUD (and bobblehead doll) included, which I am sure doesn't sound like a good thing around here but "the dogfighting module" of MWO has always been really good. Too bad it's missing everything else, and that's the only thing that worries me about Elite Dangerous: the terrible fear that they developed an amazing simulation in a very cool engine in order to have something good to raise interest, but eventually lack everything else. That's what happened with MWO: people loved insanely the first iterations of alpha, and assumed that the lack of any metagame or content was going to be easy to fix once they nailed down the combat part. Two years later none of that has been added, and yet MWO crowd-raised double the money Elite Dangerous did.

So anyway, let's hope for the best. What has been shown is really nice.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 19, 2013, 03:58:03 AM
This is looking good.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on December 20, 2013, 02:10:08 AM
The last Alpha scenario is a large-ish battle which the player can choose sides in. Some of it reminds me a bit of Freespace 2 but loving how it looks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVjvRSVmRxo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVjvRSVmRxo)

Like C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.  :awesome_for_real:





Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Draegan on December 20, 2013, 08:11:49 AM
Is this Star Citizen's single player game?



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on December 20, 2013, 10:01:57 AM
Today's alpha patch added support Oculus Rift/TrackIR/Other new fangled contraptions. Of course, RPS had already tried it. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/12/20/elite-dangerous-oculus-rift/)

That's the last I say in this thread for a while about this in case someone accuses me of being a blind-sighted fanboy.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 21, 2013, 01:56:57 AM
It's Elite.

You go for your life son.  It's only age that's stopping me breakdancing in joy when I see some of those videos.  Add some trading to that and just ship that shit now, I'll buy it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on February 05, 2014, 12:29:19 PM
Oh yes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDWnBJYTFgs  (alpha phase 2.0: MULTIPLAYER released!!)

OH YES.

Must...resist...upgrading....to alpha! (I'll be in the first round of beta, which will coincide with the introduction of the more traditional commerce/traveling system)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on February 05, 2014, 12:48:39 PM
Just saw this. Will be interested to see what videos come out over the next few weeks.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on February 05, 2014, 01:05:34 PM
put "Elite Dangerous" in your twitch tv search box and you should come up with some guys streaming live right now :)



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: HaemishM on February 05, 2014, 01:38:39 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDWnBJYTFgs  (alpha phase 2.0: MULTIPLAYER released!!)

Holy shit. Do want.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on March 07, 2014, 04:11:28 AM
Alpha 3.0 aka the "Hangar module" planned for release in mid March.  Will include docking...  (for more info and pics of docking computer, see newsletter (http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=f9f6f99d01))

(https://elite.frontier.co.uk/images/newsletter_2014_03_06/HUB_ART_TARGET_02.png)

(https://elite.frontier.co.uk/images/newsletter_2014_03_06/peek_of_the_week_21.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tebonas on March 07, 2014, 04:20:25 AM
Is that a blue Cobra on the Landing Pad? Fuck Star Citizen, I wish I would have backed this one, it really tickles my nostalgia bone.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on March 07, 2014, 04:45:41 AM
Nice! And...


Do want!!  :heart: :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on March 07, 2014, 05:23:41 AM
HOW DOES MAN GET OUT OF SHIP ??


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on March 07, 2014, 06:48:36 AM
Not to brag, but I have this! I cried when I put it on for the first time..

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Load%20New%20Commander%202.jpg)

(Girl is tattoo artist friend, not lover/partner/girlfriend)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on March 14, 2014, 05:13:01 AM
Brief thoughts about playing Alpha 3 with some insight into docking. (http://www.pcgamesn.com/elite-dangerous-alpha-3-adds-station-systems-and-hyperspace-jumps-also-quite-brilliant)

No comment on docking computers yet though...  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on March 14, 2014, 05:45:06 AM
 :heart: Docking Tutorial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey22m463104)  :heart:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on March 14, 2014, 07:29:30 AM
Bad link...



But I worked it out anyway and OMG!!!  :ye_gods:  :drill:  :heart:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MrHat on March 14, 2014, 08:14:37 AM
I'm generally not a fan of space sims, but that looked awesome.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on March 14, 2014, 09:26:36 AM
People with docking computers are wasting money.  Same as it ever was.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on March 14, 2014, 10:55:58 AM
People with docking computers are wasting money.  Same as it ever was.


I disconcur.

Time is money, friend!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on March 14, 2014, 01:12:22 PM
It never saved any time when I was a lad, mate.  There was non of this 'instant docking' shite.  You switched on the computer and it did it for you, but BY FUCK you WILL watch it dock.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on March 14, 2014, 02:06:50 PM
I seem to recall that some of the 8-bit versions let you dock instantly. I remember doing both - and yes, I remember the countless times the docking computer would crash into the station. And if you were lucky enough to survive, you then had to deal with a swarm of Vipers because it was considered a hostile act.  :uhrr:

Anyway...

HOW DOES MAN GET OUT OF SHIP ??

Go to 8:50 on this video for the answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFsinf9YyN8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFsinf9YyN8)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on March 14, 2014, 04:34:21 PM
It never saved any time when I was a lad, mate.  There was non of this 'instant docking' shite.  You switched on the computer and it did it for you, but BY FUCK you WILL watch it dock.


I have an inside scoop: an exclusive image of the grumpy old bastard Ironwood while typing the quoted message:



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on March 14, 2014, 04:53:59 PM
I seem to recall that some of the 8-bit versions let you dock instantly. I remember doing both - and yes, I remember the countless times the docking computer would crash into the station. And if you were lucky enough to survive, you then had to deal with a swarm of Vipers because it was considered a hostile act.  :uhrr:

Anyway...

HOW DOES MAN GET OUT OF SHIP ??

Go to 8:50 on this video for the answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFsinf9YyN8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFsinf9YyN8)

Fuck, it's beautiful.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on March 14, 2014, 05:17:28 PM
*whistles the 'Blue Danube' while watching the video*  :heart:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on April 10, 2014, 08:30:35 AM
If you pledged/purchased a "premium beta" tier, you might be happy to know that it's now available for download:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/04/10/elites-premium-beta-starts-today-expands-may-30/#continued

So, in reality, the "real" premium beta starts on May 30th, complete with combat, docking, trading and traveling; what is now available is more of a "gift", with just the single-player dogfight scenarios (so, basically, premium beta backers are getting Alpha 1.0, for now) .

Ok, off to download, now  :drill:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: murdoc on April 10, 2014, 11:54:03 AM
ugggh - this is tough not to throw a bunch of money at. It looks awesome.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on April 11, 2014, 02:05:27 AM
They've also announced details of Alpha 4.0 (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=14555) which will feature more inter-system travel and "200 cubic light year volume of space" to explore. No date as of yet.

And here's the full galactic map of the 400,000,000,000 star systems. 

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bk4Kkr8IEAELRlU.jpg:large)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: VainEldritch on April 16, 2014, 01:20:14 AM
ugggh - this is tough not to throw a bunch of money at. It looks awesome.

Yup it surely is... I buckled and upgraded 1st round beta (kick starter pledge) to Alpha. The game play is fucking amazing. And it's Elite.

After a 30-year odyssey through video gaming from the BBC B and 12" black'n'white television and tape recorder, to 8-core CPU, giga-net and LCD flat screen; from Elite and Wizardry through Eve Online, UO, SWG, WoW and SWTOR... I am finally coming home to the place it all started on a rainy Friday night all those years ago when a guilty absentee father poked his head around my bedroom door and said "Son, I got you a birthday present - something you might like...".

 :heart:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 16, 2014, 01:44:02 AM
You shelled out 240?! Damn, I am so so tempted! And even though I like Braben more than Roberts I can't push myself that high. 240 for an alpha is probably my limit. But I am on fire for this game!

(I loved your little shard of personal history...)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 16, 2014, 05:40:10 AM
ugggh - this is tough not to throw a bunch of money at. It looks awesome.

Yup it surely is... I buckled and upgraded 1st round beta (kick starter pledge) to Alpha. The game play is fucking amazing. And it's Elite.

After a 30-year odyssey through video gaming from the BBC B and 12" black'n'white television and tape recorder, to 8-core CPU, giga-net and LCD flat screen; from Elite and Wizardry through Eve Online, UO, SWG, WoW and SWTOR... I am finally coming home to the place it all started on a rainy Friday night all those years ago when a guilty absentee father poked his head around my bedroom door and said "Son, I got you a birthday present - something you might like...".

 :heart:


Damn, you're making me think about spending some of my 3k tax rebate here.

Are you allowed to throw us some vids of you buggering about ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on April 16, 2014, 06:03:54 AM
ugggh - this is tough not to throw a bunch of money at. It looks awesome.

Yup it surely is... I buckled and upgraded 1st round beta (kick starter pledge) to Alpha. The game play is fucking amazing. And it's Elite.

After a 30-year odyssey through video gaming from the BBC B and 12" black'n'white television and tape recorder, to 8-core CPU, giga-net and LCD flat screen; from Elite and Wizardry through Eve Online, UO, SWG, WoW and SWTOR... I am finally coming home to the place it all started on a rainy Friday night all those years ago when a guilty absentee father poked his head around my bedroom door and said "Son, I got you a birthday present - something you might like...".

 :heart:


Damn, you're making me think about spending some of my 3k tax rebate here.

Are you allowed to throw us some vids of you buggering about ?


E:D Alpha has no NDA. Current stage of testing is Alpha 3.0: put that in the search field on Youtube (plus "multiplayer dogfighting" and other variations you might be interested about) and you should get plenty of results.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: VainEldritch on April 16, 2014, 06:15:50 AM

Damn, you're making me think about spending some of my 3k tax rebate here.

Are you allowed to throw us some vids of you buggering about ?


Not to be a supreme dick or anything, but I'm an utter technophobe and would need some guidance on making in game videos as I am clueless. Youtube has literally hundreds (soon to be thousands) of Alpha 3+ gameplay footage movies covering all aspects of the current build, from combat to docking and outfitting - and Alpha 4 is due to drop very soon with travel and trading across a "mere" 200 cubic light years of space far from Earth (and as Douglas Adams pointed out, “Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”)

Frontier Developments are not some pencil dick hiding their secret shame behind guilty NDA verbage. They are in fact freely exposing themselves, riding rough shod over insecurity and screwing it mercilessly before dismounting to stride manfully over and wave their glistening junk in your face.

I wax "enthusiastic" because this is David Braben. This is Elite. This a team that makes games because they love games, not because some physical object marketing team reject tells them what to make. This is THE game they have wanted to make for the past 20 years. Now they are doing it, free from big publisher bullshit.

This game will be the end for me - the last game. I have come full circle - and find myself content to walk with this one into the sunset.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 16, 2014, 02:52:08 PM
Um....

I was only asking.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 16, 2014, 03:55:58 PM
"Favourite VR game so far..." (http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/15/the-rift-report-10-of-the-best-vr-experiences/)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: VainEldritch on April 17, 2014, 12:26:31 PM
"Favourite VR game so far..." (http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/15/the-rift-report-10-of-the-best-vr-experiences/)

"Like being in Star Wars but with fewer Ewoks."

  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on April 17, 2014, 02:33:46 PM
The "expert" AI pilot on the third single-player scenario is totally kicking my ass, can't shake him off once he gets on my tail.


BUT I DON'T UNDERSTAND, I WAS GOOD AT THIS KIND OF STUFF IN THE NINETIES, I SWEAR !! :cry2: :cry2:

(http://www.globalnerdy.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/grandpa_simpson_yelling_at_cloud.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 18, 2014, 03:40:03 AM
Have you tried stopping the throttle dead ?

Have you tried twisting 90 then back as you slow ?

Have you tried regressing your age about 20 years when you weren't such a slow old man with zero reflexes ?

All worth a shot.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on April 18, 2014, 04:33:54 AM
I eventually defeated him after a few more tries  :drill: .

The general flight model is really well done: you can't expect to do sharp turns or other maneuvers at full speed, so it's always a matter of going back and forth with your throttle controller while you keep an eye on the enemy (another hint: follow the trail of his ship's engines!).

Plus, depending on the situation, you need to distribute the energy to a particular system (done through the hat switch as the default setting): weapons when you're confident you'll be able to discharge a certain amount of ammunition; engines when you need more speed to run away (or in other situations); systems when you need that damn shield to recharge faster. In addition, there is lateral and vertical thruster maneuvers, which are quite cool. Like other people said, sound effects are pretty nice, and I like the feel of impact when I hit the other ship. Also consider that the single-player portion for premium beta testers is based on a much older build.

tl;dr ....... FOREVER YOUNG!!!  :woot:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on April 19, 2014, 10:46:05 PM
Is a joystick a must have sort of thing for this game?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on April 22, 2014, 04:47:08 AM
Feedback so far is that the game works well enough with joypad or even with keyboard (using the old classic Elite configuration).  Suspect joystick is the way to go though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: VainEldritch on April 22, 2014, 06:59:28 AM
Feedback so far is that the game works well enough with joypad or even with keyboard (using the old classic Elite configuration).  Suspect joystick is the way to go though.

Confirming your suspicions.

KB can indeed work in ye olde Elite mode - but it just feels so much more natural when the AI is on your tail to slam the throttle back into full reverse, yaw on the stick with roll then gun it to come up on his tail (if it works...  :drill: ).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 22, 2014, 11:14:33 PM
After a 30-year odyssey through video gaming from the BBC B and 12" black'n'white television and tape recorder, to 8-core CPU, giga-net and LCD flat screen; from Elite and Wizardry through Eve Online, UO, SWG, WoW and SWTOR... I am finally coming home to the place it all started on a rainy Friday night all those years ago when a guilty absentee father poked his head around my bedroom door and said "Son, I got you a birthday present - something you might like...".
 :heart:

Oh? My father poked his head around my bedroom door and said "TURN THAT FUCKING THING OFF".

I had bought Elite on tape for C64 by second-hand selling the first three AD&D Dragonlance modules to other kids. I played Elite for years.

From what you wrote, I'm looking forward to this more than I can express. Thanks.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on April 23, 2014, 04:27:40 PM
Not Dragons of the Autumn Twilight!  :cry:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 24, 2014, 06:39:15 AM
40 minutes of (single player) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ef4SG-JnJQ)  :drill: :drill: :drill: :drill:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Bungee on April 24, 2014, 06:54:20 AM
This so looks like Aquanox. Loved that game, never got to playing Elite though. Worth trying once it's out I guess.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on May 06, 2014, 01:41:38 AM
Awesome newsletter #21 (http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=cfcdbae60e)

In other news....it has arrived!!  :grin:

(http://i.imgur.com/S72zcUel.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on May 12, 2014, 01:38:38 PM
That is pretty damned  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on May 16, 2014, 01:45:02 AM
WARNING, PLEASE READ:

All the following links might be NSFW, because of the highly concentration of space porn included. Proceed with caution.
----------------------


Alpha 4.0 launched yesterday evening (central european time); early reports say that it's nothing short of spectacular  :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real:

Check out if there is archived video footage from a few hours ago on any of this Twitch TV streams:

http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=16026

Also, trade run:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2mQgQdUXug

Galaxy map:
http://youtu.be/jAtj24xpO2I

Quite a familiar system :)

(http://s11.postimg.org/6fiz61vxf/oldworlds.jpg)



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 16, 2014, 01:54:05 AM
This is gonna get me fired, can't help it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Nebu on May 16, 2014, 10:51:57 AM
This is gonna get me fired, can't help it.

Yep.  I'm scheduling a few days off when I can get my hands on this.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on May 16, 2014, 12:03:55 PM
I have to say this is all pretty impressive looking, and I'm not someone who's normally into this style of game. I wonder how much pressure the Star Citizen people are feeling seeing what this other team has done with fewer resources?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Stormwaltz on May 16, 2014, 12:37:10 PM
These have made me laugh with delight more than once.

So far they are knocking it out of the fucking park.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Draegan on May 16, 2014, 01:26:26 PM
Is this an MMO? A single player game? A multiplayer game you play with friends? Is it single universe you play through and a single player while inviting people into your world to play?



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 16, 2014, 02:24:40 PM
Holy Shit.

Holy Shit.

Wow.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Nebu on May 16, 2014, 02:26:20 PM
Is this an MMO? A single player game? A multiplayer game you play with friends? Is it single universe you play through and a single player while inviting people into your world to play?

Found this on the Kickstart page:

Quote
And the best part - you can do all this online with your friends, or other "Elite" pilots like yourself, or even alone. The choice is yours...  

So co-op.

EDIT: Also saw this:

Quote
Multiplayer: you will be able to control who else you might encounter in your game – perhaps limit it to just your friends? Cooperate on adventures or chase your friends down to get that booty. The game will work in a seamless, lobby-less way, with the ability to rendezvous with friends as you choose. This technology is already working, using a combination of peer-to-peer (to reduce lag) and server connections.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 16, 2014, 02:57:17 PM
But there is going to be PvP and piracy, that's for certain, so the whole thing is quite vague still. Maybe that's a department where they are still very weak and prefer not to expose to the public what could be severe limitations. Anyway, I don't think it can be considered an MMO (although World of Tanks apparently counts as one....)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Nebu on May 16, 2014, 04:44:57 PM
From what I understand, people would host their own servers.  That makes both pvp and co-op possible and the scale would depend on how many people you let into your universe.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Stormwaltz on May 16, 2014, 10:50:49 PM
Preordered.

None of the crazy beta packages, but preordered. From what I can see it's already worth what they're asking.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on May 17, 2014, 09:07:29 AM
I said fuck it and got the premium beta, and ordered myself a flight stick with throttle. Just playing around with the combat module with a mouse and keyboard was fantastic. I can't wait till I have a good stick to use. I've been wanting a good joystick for a while for a few other games so I killed several birds with one stone.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Simond on May 18, 2014, 01:39:45 PM
Some bloke takes the Eagle, Lakon & Anaconda out for quick spins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmoWyCxF1CM


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on May 18, 2014, 03:24:32 PM
Some bloke takes the Eagle, Lakon & Anaconda out for quick spins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmoWyCxF1CM

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/868747/1365632016_south-park-randy-masturbation.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 21, 2014, 01:24:47 PM
Yes. So much drooling.

Elite: Dangerous Progress Diary #12 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGf9OPot8Sc)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 21, 2014, 01:30:44 PM
Mining the rings.  Whoa.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on May 21, 2014, 02:07:46 PM
geeze. Star Citizen single-player alpha on the 29th and then this the day after.

Xmas day, spaaaceee edition  :drill:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miasma on May 21, 2014, 04:11:02 PM
It's almost like star citizen felt threatened by another space game that got only a small amount of money but has managed to actually deliver on promises instead of fucking around and so they are dropping their hugely delayed small component one day ahead of elite dangerous.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on May 21, 2014, 07:32:20 PM
I can't even imagine how much fun I am going to have with the premium beta. I have been playing the combat scenarios endlessly. The flight physics feel so good, playing this with a stick is so rewarding.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on May 22, 2014, 08:27:42 AM
Rather than retitle this "Elite: Not Star Citizen", I did the right thing and retitled the Cariss Rubberts thread.  For my own benefit.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Draegan on May 23, 2014, 07:22:47 AM
I have Star Citizen access but I have not been paying attention to that game at all other than this thread and larger media attention it's gotten. I'm just started paying attention to this thread. I won't be dropping $150 on it but I do want to see what kind of sticks people are getting.

I haven't used a flight sim stick since the 90s. What kind of stuff would people suggest getting?

edit: watching this now - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceOdOytgT64


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on May 23, 2014, 07:52:36 AM
Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X. It's entry level but works really well. Got it for 50 bucks. The next hands on throttle type controller is from Saitek and jumps up to 160 bucks. I just wasn't comfortable spending that much on a stick I am sure is going to get beaten up while I relearn how to play with a joystick.

If this game ends up being everything I want and Star Citizen also turns out good then I will end up getting a much nicer controller when this one wears out.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on May 30, 2014, 02:20:26 AM
Today is Premium Beta day!!!  :thumbs_up: :inluv: :yahoo: :eat:

Here's the official W.I.P. manual (taken from this thread http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18465) :

Manual (http://elite.frontier.co.uk/downloads/Sidewinder_Owners_Manual_WIP.pdf)
---

Team is getting prep for launch:

http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18488


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 30, 2014, 02:27:20 AM
Link to manual doesn't work! Lieutenant Lucas, mirror it! NOW!  (pleasee....?  :ye_gods: )


EDIT: Here. (http://elite.frontier.co.uk/downloads/Sidewinder_Owners_Manual_WIP.pdf)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on May 30, 2014, 02:33:10 AM
Whoops, sorry. Edited my message with your link.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on May 30, 2014, 04:30:48 AM
Godsdammit!

Resisting urge to spend a ton on the Premium Beta access.  Oh for the days before kids when I had disposable funds and would have been more than happy taking a risk on it!   :uhrr:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on May 30, 2014, 04:50:20 AM
Released  :drill: :drill:

http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18542

Downloading!!! double  :drill:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on May 30, 2014, 04:51:47 AM
Videos like this one showing a guy using voice commands while flying a Cobra MkIII don't make resisting any easier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxhiLpLeFhU


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 30, 2014, 06:15:10 AM
I'm guessing that 'Premium' in there means you can pay to play ?
...

Just asking.


EDITED :  100 notes.  Forget I asked.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: palmer_eldritch on May 30, 2014, 07:06:21 AM
I had no idea this was so close to being playable.

As I'm too lazy to do my own research, someone tell me please which spaceship game I should take an interest in, this or Star Citizen? I'm guessing this, based on that video DraconianOne posted.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on May 30, 2014, 07:44:15 AM
Videos like this one showing a guy using voice commands while flying a Cobra MkIII don't make resisting any easier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxhiLpLeFhU

I'll say it. I came.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 30, 2014, 09:03:36 AM
I had no idea this was so close to being playable.

As I'm too lazy to do my own research, someone tell me please which spaceship game I should take an interest in, this or Star Citizen? I'm guessing this, based on that video DraconianOne posted.


Palmer,

Star Citizen have a much much larger scope than Elite, so even if they were both ready tomorrow I am not sure they would overlap.

That said, Elite is playable and it rocks, so it's safe to say it will be out for the masses in a year at worst. Star Citizen in my opinion won't be close to have half its features ready in less than two years, so I'd say Elite for 2014 and 2015, Star Citizen if it doesn't implode for 2016.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 30, 2014, 01:05:07 PM
The Anaconda. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewo-6WVZaIU)

*dies*


/heads to the Elite: Dangerous pledge store.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on May 30, 2014, 02:19:11 PM
Y'all are really testing my "I have learned how to delay gratification, really I have" commitment.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 30, 2014, 03:05:19 PM
The funny thing is that they are not even lying about what they are selling. You get ABSOLUTELY NOTHING by paying for beta other than... beta. No added bonus worth mentioning (other than free future, possible, potential, eventual expansions). And still, the word of mouth is getting so strong in this one that it's really starting to pick up money now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on May 30, 2014, 03:51:49 PM
In fairness, the Premium beta access only costs £30 after taking away £35 for the game and £35 for future expansions.  Then again, they're not obliged to deliver on those expansions.

EDIT: I don't know why I'm defending this - I don't like the idea of paying to beta test at all and even writing that bit about the expansions actually makes me question the legality of what they're doing. More research needed.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 31, 2014, 12:41:46 AM
The Anaconda. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewo-6WVZaIU)

*dies*


/heads to the Elite: Dangerous pledge store.

I just want an anaconda.  Is that too much to ask for ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 31, 2014, 02:57:51 PM
This subforum (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=36) in the official website lists and discusses all the design goals and decisions taken so far. It is incredibly informative and in all honesty very, very ambitious. So ambitious that it gives me a very bad vibe. It is clear so far that the Elite team has nailed down space combat and traveling, but it's also true that not a single other element is in the game yet: mining, questing, NPCs, politics, etc. and the last time a game started with awesome combat and ended up with no meta at all it was with Mechwarrior Online, which is still stuck with nothing but arena fights.

Still, if you read to see what is the finished Elite Dangerous suposed to be, here are all the answers. (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=36)


Here are some of the most interesting:

Ratings and Reputation (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6279) - *Partially in the game*
Fuel in Elite: Dangerous (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=14422) - *Not in the game yet*
Criminality (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6276) - *Partially in the game*
Trading (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6299) - *Partially in the game*
Death Penalty (and Hardcore mode) (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5323) - *Partially in the game*
Background Simulation (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6305) - *Not in the game yet*
Persistent NPCs (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7494) - *Not in the game yet*
Mining (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7196) - *Not in the game yet*
Smuggling (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6562) - *Partially in the game*
Hiring Wingmen (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=14580) - *Not in the game yet*
Exploring in Elite: Dangerous (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6418) - *Partially in the game*
Bounty Hunting (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6417) - *Partially in the game*
Trading Slaves (!) (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7158) - *Not in the game yet*
Passengers (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7216) - *Not in the game yet*
Vouchers (Real Money Purchases) (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8873) - *Not in the game yet*
"Hello, Bomb. Are you with me?" (Ship Management) (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7374)
War, poverty, cruelty, unnecessary violence" Factions and Causes in Elite: Dangerous (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8021) - *Not in the game yet*


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Simond on June 02, 2014, 05:03:06 PM
I had no idea this was so close to being playable.

As I'm too lazy to do my own research, someone tell me please which spaceship game I should take an interest in, this or Star Citizen? I'm guessing this, based on that video DraconianOne posted.

One of these has a lot of ideas thrown at a wall which may or may not eventually turn into some sort of game at an unspecified point of time in the future. The other just went into (closed and actual) beta.
Take your pick.  :grin:

The Anaconda. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewo-6WVZaIU)

*dies*


/heads to the Elite: Dangerous pledge store.

I just want an anaconda.  Is that too much to ask for ?
You can have the Anaconda as long as I can get a

(http://i.minus.com/ibjUxt0V5W73Ww.jpg)

 :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 03, 2014, 03:10:59 AM
What is that ?  A remake of the Frontier Imperial ship ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 03, 2014, 04:53:17 AM
Yeah, I think it's the Imperial Courier.


(http://wiki.alioth.net/images/archive/4/40/20060116195904%21ImperialCourier.gif)


(http://www.helvellyn.plus.com/3dfrontier/3d/impcour2.gif)


(Hahaha, "Check other side"!  :heart: )


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 03, 2014, 05:09:27 AM
I liked the other one better, with the 3 spikes as it looked a little like The Liberator.

In all honesty, I just want to fly the Cleopatra again, which was my Asp in Frontier.  Great wee runabout with some nice cargo space too.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 03, 2014, 05:12:50 AM
We know that there will be 25 available ships at launch. Lots of them are obvious, lots aren't. Curiosity kills.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MisterNoisy on June 04, 2014, 02:40:39 PM
Yeah, I think it's the Imperial Courier.


(http://wiki.alioth.net/images/archive/4/40/20060116195904%21ImperialCourier.gif)


(http://www.helvellyn.plus.com/3dfrontier/3d/impcour2.gif)


(Hahaha, "Check other side"!  :heart: )


Oh man, I spent so much damned time in my Courier - that was literally my goal for the first part of the game after my first playthrough - trade up to a Courier.  Perfect size for smuggling, piracy, bounty hunting and light trading - it was just big enough that you could configure it for pretty much any role.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Simond on June 04, 2014, 04:17:33 PM
Why the Imperial Courier was  :drill: : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzEj4Gq7fT4



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Furiously on June 04, 2014, 11:21:48 PM
All I remember is finally getting that ship and the front mount gun spot not working.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 05, 2014, 12:36:00 AM
That intro movie gives me the chills. Thanks for reposting it, Simond  :heart:

I will return the favour with this updated version of our most favourite star systems ever, from the Elite: Dangerous Galaxy Map.



(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Lave%20Riedquat.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 06, 2014, 12:29:25 PM
Ironwood mocked me into making a First Impressions video for Elite: Dangerous Premium Beta, so here it is with Engrish and all.
If anything I did my best to properly show the ship models and to get dogfights as close and personal as possible.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouohoGIDtHU


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on June 06, 2014, 07:07:25 PM
Thanks for that, very nice! 
si parla molto bene l'inglese


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on June 07, 2014, 06:14:33 AM
You're English is fine.  Better than some people I know who are natives. :-P

Thanks for the overview though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: calapine on June 07, 2014, 06:50:36 AM
I like your voice.  :heart:

The game looks good too, of course...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on June 07, 2014, 10:19:49 AM
Ironwood mocked me into making a First Impressions video for Elite: Dangerous Premium Beta, so here it is with Engrish and all.
If anything I did my best to properly show the ship models and to get dogfights as close and personal as possible.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouohoGIDtHU

Great and informative video  :thumbs_up:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 07, 2014, 11:13:19 AM
Curious fact, from the official Elite: Dangerous forum. Granted, the sample size is small and Elite was developed in Europe, but this is odd.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Where%20in%20the%20world.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 07, 2014, 11:50:04 AM
Elite was a Monster-Fuck of a Massive Fucking Thing in the UK.

It was goddamned HUGE.  It had Benny Hill doing a TV Commercial before TV was invented.

That result doesn't surprise me much.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on June 08, 2014, 11:38:14 AM
Elite was pretty damn expensive in the US back then.  And completely free for the vast majority of those outside the US who played it back then.  I suspect there is a correlation there.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on June 08, 2014, 12:09:30 PM
Does it have soccer in it?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 08, 2014, 12:17:17 PM
Whoa! I just tried this game, and Star Citizen, and a few others, with Voice Attack (http://www.voiceattack.com). I don't know if there are other similar softwares, if you know them please point me to them. But anyway, this is GREAT!

I usually don't like gimmicks like the WII controller or the Kinect, but this feels so damn natural. As a starship commander, it is only right to give voice commands to your ship computer, isn't it? Again, this works perfectly with both Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen, but I can see myself getting addicted to this and using it for all sorts of games. Screaming "POTION!" to heal in a MMORPG all of a sudden makes sense. Again, this is not for your most used keys, it's for the least used one, the ones you have to reach from time to time and could mess with your rhythm in games with a tight pace.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on June 08, 2014, 12:38:57 PM
How responsive is it?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 08, 2014, 12:51:37 PM
Surprisingly very responsive. I'd say there is a 0.5 seconds delay which is perfect for the starship functions that aren't shooting or require reactions within a millisecond. For example, I am using it to:

- Divert power to shields/engines/weapons.
- Deploy/retract landing gear.
- Deploy/retract cargo scoop.
- Switch to silent running mode.
- Deploy heat sinks.
- Select/Switch targets.
- Throttle to zero.
- Activate Supercruise/Hyperjump.

All these functions work perfectly well with the 0.5 delay, it's what I would expect from a co-pilot executing my orders. I was skeptical when I first heard of it, but so far I am extremely impressed.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on June 08, 2014, 04:09:46 PM
Holy Shit, voice attack is fucking awesome.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on June 08, 2014, 05:54:12 PM
Whoa! I just tried this game, and Star Citizen, and a few others, with Voice Attack (http://www.voiceattack.com). I don't know if there are other similar softwares, if you know them please point me to them. But anyway, this is GREAT!

I usually don't like gimmicks like the WII controller or the Kinect, but this feels so damn natural. As a starship commander, it is only right to give voice commands to your ship computer, isn't it? Again, this works perfectly with both Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen, but I can see myself getting addicted to this and using it for all sorts of games. Screaming "POTION!" to heal in a MMORPG all of a sudden makes sense. Again, this is not for your most used keys, it's for the least used one, the ones you have to reach from time to time and could mess with your rhythm in games with a tight pace.

Do you have potion mapped to "FOCK!"?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 08, 2014, 11:35:06 PM
Heehee, that's actually the fun part.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on June 09, 2014, 01:31:01 AM
Demo of travel, docking and system commands with Voice Attack (also, rings of a gas giant) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxhiLpLeFhU

Combat with Voice Attack and Track-IR (also Capital Ship) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fd5dgFJurQ

Attempting to deploy fuel scoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEu4Iq5KL-Q

 :awesome_for_real:




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 09, 2014, 01:48:39 AM
This game so far is fucking incredible. As I said in my video, my only real issue is with the scope: we have all the reasons in the world to believe they won't be able to deliver half the things they promised (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=19639), or at least not in any reasonable time.

Quote

List of the things that are not in the beta yet but are supposed to be ready at launch in 6 months.


Law Enforcement
Groupings
Communications
Missions
Access to some of the other 399,999,999,995 systems - Not all systems will be accessible in Beta but the number will increase.
Mining
More ships - see list of ships below
More weapons/addons - list if you know them and I'll update - Repair Systems, Shotgun type weapon, Docking computers.
Dynamic events - e.g. famines, wars etc..
Rankings
Faction alliance
New space stations
Docking on Cruisers
New trade goods (including unique trade goods)
System Map
Customization of ship interiors/exteriors
Fuel and Fuel skimming gas giants.
Wear and tear on ships /modules (outside of direct damage)
Passengers
NPC Contacts interaction
Wingmen
A more fleshed out supercruise mechanic. The ability to see, chase, interdict and avoid other players/NPCs, slingshots around planets and similar
Hyperspace stuff (i.e. analysis, following, linking, misjumps)
Improved planets
Exploration mechanics
Alliance
Empire
Damage models
Derelict ships - Salvage etc..
News system that covers events in game
Multiple character slots
Different start locations
Founder's world
Ironman mode
Deploying escape pods (rather than the automatic system we have now)
Hangars and multiple ship ownership
Improved Insurance
Single player - online/offline
Privateering and letters of Marque
Galaxy Evolution
New trade options - Seeing Market values without docking, Graphs!.
Beacons
Thargoids
Dark Systems, comets, Other Phenomena.
Probes
Player logs
Ship naming
Ship crews
Criminality

Ships to be added
1. Sidewinder (In Beta Already)
2. Cobra mk3 (In Beta Already)
3. Eagle (In Beta Already)
4. Viper mk2
5. Adder
6. ASP explorer
7. Imperial Courier
8. Anaconda (In Beta Already)
9. Panther Clipper
10. Orca
11. Daulphine
12. Beluga
13. Lakon type 6
14. Lakon type 7
15. Lakon type 9 (In Beta Already)
16. Python
17. Imperial Cutter.

more speculative :
18. Krait
19. "the hunter"
20. Fer-De-Lance

(out of 25 playable ships)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: palmer_eldritch on June 09, 2014, 04:19:00 AM
Ironwood mocked me into making a First Impressions video for Elite: Dangerous Premium Beta, so here it is with Engrish and all.
If anything I did my best to properly show the ship models and to get dogfights as close and personal as possible.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouohoGIDtHU

Convinced me to splash out £100 on this, thanks.
 
The original Elite was sold (on cassette tape as I recall) for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, which I'm not sure were every widely available outside the UK? It was converted to other formats later, but if you had an Acorn or BBC then it was the game to buy.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 09, 2014, 05:10:50 AM
I am not surprised that Elite is more popular in Europe than North America, I can think of a million reasons for such thing. I am surprised for the 78% vs 11% ratio. I understand every American kid is too busy worshipping Christ Roberts right now, but 78% vs 11% still feels really odd to me. Then again, small sample size, etc..

Happy you found the video useful, Palmer.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on June 09, 2014, 06:00:57 AM
I'm not surprised by it.  I had never heard of it until the Kickstarter, and was trying to figure out why so many people were going nuts over it.  I don't think it was ever promoted over here to any real degree.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 09, 2014, 06:33:10 AM
Oh?

Ok, that's fascinating. And I had no idea. I always thought that somehow nerd/gaming culture in its dawn was pretty much borderless. Unlike music culture. I am always a bit surprised when I realize how less big artists like Portishead, or PJ Harvey, or Nick Cave were in the US as opposed to Europe. And it always takes me some time to explain to my North American friends why I have no idea what's a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup or that I've never heard of a disgusting band called Creed.

But ELITE?! More seriously, I always thought videogame culture and knowledge had been pretty much "global" since forever, so this is really interesting and new to me. Thanks for your perspectives.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on June 09, 2014, 07:45:34 AM
I like the question on the forums: "So is E:D a reboot of Eve?"  :why_so_serious:

Great video Falc. Still tempted to drop the cash on the beta but... other things to spend that money on at the moment.  That's also an impressive list that you quoted too. I had seen it on the forums but hadn't really paid attention to it.  I'm pretty sure some of the stuff is done and waiting in the wings - the Damocles video from last year was made using in-game assets and showed the Imperial Capital Ship, Imperial Fighters and Cobra Mk 1s I believe (or ere they actually Sidewinders ?)  Also, it looks like they may be introducing a new space station soon, judging from the sneak peek in the newsletter this week:

(http://elite.frontier.co.uk/images/newsletter_2014_06_06/peek_of_the_week_35.jpg) (http://elite.frontier.co.uk/images/newsletter_2014_06_06/peek_of_the_week_35.jpg)

The other thing is that I'm pretty sure they know how to do a lot of what they need to put in because they've done iterations of it before in the previous games. But yeah, a lot to do. I just hope they spend their time on the right things (i.e. fun things like events, fluctuating economy etc - not gravitational slingshots).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on June 09, 2014, 09:21:35 AM
Really good video Falc! If I had £100 spare right now I'd be buying this. I'm champing at the bit for it to go live or at least cheaper.

All of my old gaming friends here in the UK played Elite as kids. All of us. All of us were totally meh about Wing Commander.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 09, 2014, 10:49:52 AM
I'm not surprised by it.  I had never heard of it until the Kickstarter, and was trying to figure out why so many people were going nuts over it.  I don't think it was ever promoted over here to any real degree.

Whut ?

Really ?



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Nebu on June 09, 2014, 10:55:53 AM
All of my old gaming friends here in the UK played Elite as kids. All of us. All of us were totally meh about Wing Commander.

All Wing Commander and Freelancer did was make me nostalgic for the days of Elite.  Thanks for the vid Falc.  Was a nice chance to see the game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 09, 2014, 10:58:49 AM
I'm not surprised by it.  I had never heard of it until the Kickstarter, and was trying to figure out why so many people were going nuts over it.  I don't think it was ever promoted over here to any real degree.

Whut ?

Really ?



That's especially weird to me considering they came up with the sequel(s) in the 90s, and they were a big deal, and equally fantastic despite some known flaws.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on June 09, 2014, 11:19:27 AM
I'm not surprised by it.  I had never heard of it until the Kickstarter, and was trying to figure out why so many people were going nuts over it.  I don't think it was ever promoted over here to any real degree.

Whut ?

Really ?



Yep. I'd heard of it, but only because of some random circumstances that have nothing to do with the game. I don't think the BBC Micro computers it was originally made for were ever sold over here at all. It did get converted to stuff we had like the C64, but I don't remember anyone I knew playing it, and we played just about everything that was on the shelves in those days.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 09, 2014, 11:24:06 AM
But having never heard of it ?

That's shocking given how big it was here.  Not that I'm disputing it at all, it's just hard to get my head around.

It's like me trying to figure out what the fuck a four way junction was through Sam's fucking mental video.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 09, 2014, 11:29:39 AM
It's shocking considering it is possibly the first open world game ever, and how often so many game developers mention it among their biggest influences. Hell, Grand Theft Auto was made with Elite in mind (source (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134644/the_replay_interviews_gary_penn.php?page=2)).

EDIT: Also, again, Elite 2 on Amiga.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Nebu on June 09, 2014, 11:36:43 AM
It's shocking considering it is possibly the first open world game ever, and how often so many game developers mention it among their biggest influences. Hell, Grand Theft Auto was made with Elite in mind (source (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134644/the_replay_interviews_gary_penn.php?page=2)).

EDIT: Also, again, Elite 2 on Amiga.

I'd say that Star Raiders (Wiki link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Raiders)) was perhaps an inspiration for the original Elite, which came 5 years later.  It's much less ambitious, but had a very open-word feel for such an early game.  It was also my gateway drug!

I consider Elite, Archon, and MULE to be among the top 3 computer games that got me forever hooked.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Typhon on June 09, 2014, 11:44:05 AM
Add me to the list of ignorant bastards that had never heard of Elite.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on June 09, 2014, 11:51:23 AM
EDIT: Also, again, Elite 2 on Amiga.

Speaking of things that were far more widely owned in Europe, people with Amigas were pretty rare here.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 09, 2014, 11:53:47 AM
I consider Elite, Archon, and MULE to be among the top 3 computer games that got me forever hooked.

See, Nebu, that is creepy. Those are my three too. I'd just add Utopia for Intellivision to the lot. Those are my good scars.


EDIT:
EDIT: Also, again, Elite 2 on Amiga.

Speaking of things that were far more widely owned in Europe, people with Amigas were pretty rare here.

See, that's really cool for me to find out. If anything this thread is so informative to me. Thanks a lot for the contributions!

P.S: What the hell were you all playing 16-bit stuff on at the time? The Atari ST? Consoles?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tmp on June 09, 2014, 12:01:12 PM
P.S: What the hell were you all playing 16-bit stuff on at the time? The Atari ST? Consoles?
CGA-card (maybe even EGA!) PCs and Apple II's (are these the right ones? idk) at schools would be my guess.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on June 09, 2014, 12:04:22 PM
With my friends, it was an assortment of people who never upgraded from their Commodore 64s during that time frame, people who got on the PC wagon, and consoles. A few Atari and Apple computers but those were rarer. I have I think one friend who had an Amiga growing up - Amigas were really expensive if I recall, like well over $1000.

I was one of the C64 people, we didn't get a new computer between that and our first 286.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Zetleft on June 09, 2014, 12:17:31 PM
Yeah back then I had a PC and as a kid saw an Amiga at a computer store, those were impressive graphics at the time.  I remember being really shocked at how much they cost so I pretty much assumed my parents would never buy one.  Would of definitely been a step up from from the 256k or whatever PC we had at home. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 09, 2014, 12:56:26 PM
Atari ST was also big over here at the time, but that was pretty much because of Dungeon Master.

Amstrad CPC was the link between the two and I got to ELITE on that, pretty much farming Thargoids before I knew what the fuck the term 'farming' meant.  See, on the Amstrad, you could 'jink' your hyperspace drive to get into Witch space.

It hurt.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 09, 2014, 02:34:17 PM
Half-serious break. The first novel set in the Elite: Dangerous universe, written by Kate Russel, is out. You can get it here for 6£ (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elite-Mostly-Harmless-Dangerous-ebook/dp/B00KUXT3DC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402343718&sr=8-1&keywords=Elite:+Mostly+Harmless&utm_content=buffer3c6af&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer) but I think you should really watch the trailer first, narrated by Kate herself who obviously has been obsessed with the original Elite since she was 12.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTdBPQfbpjU


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on June 09, 2014, 04:32:29 PM
The kids who first had a computer got pre-packaged ones like Apple IIs and Commadore-64s.  I knew someone a little older that had a TI.  My first was a PC XT, which got upgraded over time.  After that pretty much all anyone had that I knew was self-built PC systems.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 09, 2014, 04:35:19 PM
I can't believe North America basically skipped the Amiga, one of the best gaming platforms ever built.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on June 09, 2014, 05:07:26 PM
I just looked it up - an Amiga 1000 with a monitor was $1,595. You could buy 3 C64s, two PCJrs, or like 15 NESes for that much money, it was really, really expensive at least over here.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: calapine on June 09, 2014, 05:10:12 PM
I can't believe North America basically skipped the Amiga, one of the best gaming platforms ever built.

Interesting. I didn't know Amiga was popular in Europe. Google says you are right though.

(http://i.imgur.com/q9h68lQ.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: calapine on June 09, 2014, 05:20:37 PM
Addendum: As much as standards are nice, it's a shame there isn't any competition of various systems anymore. Amiga vs IBM CGA graphics and OS/2 vs Windows 3.1 showed what would have been/was possible.

On the other hand, Cryengine 3 got ported to Linux and Witcher 3 will be released on Linux/Steameinge as well. Maybe this is a sign that things are beginning to shake up a bit.  :-)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on June 09, 2014, 07:11:05 PM
I saw the original Elite on a friend's C64 I think, or was it Apple? I never owned a C64 myself though.  But as I said, Elite was priced way out of the market.  I think it was something like $80 when the most expensive games might have been $50 and the vast majority around $30 I think? 

The 8-bit wars here were mostly between Apple IIs,TRS-80, Ti something, C64, Atari 800/800XL, and late in the game came the IBM PC, but the C64 overwhelmed all the others combined.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Furiously on June 09, 2014, 07:16:05 PM
I had a friend give me a copy of Elite as a kid and man.... We had so many months of playing that, then Elite+, Then lots of other space games came out.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 09, 2014, 08:10:43 PM
I just looked it up - an Amiga 1000 with a monitor was $1,595. You could buy 3 C64s, two PCJrs, or like 15 NESes for that much money, it was really, really expensive at least over here.

That wasn't the mass market Amiga gaming model. The Amiga 500 sold for $699 in the US and used your TV as a monitor (with bundled adapter). I owned and gamed on an A500 in Australia, but most of my teenage gaming (including years of Elite) was done on a C64 with tape drive, connected to a TV. If you had any model higher than an A500 you were either rich or a computer enthusiast.

Elite is ultimately the open world experience I've been trying to recreate in MMOs and open world games, particularly in EverQuest (my first MMO) and SWG. I played Elite so much as a teenager, it probably shaped how my brain works.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Zetor on June 09, 2014, 09:00:03 PM
While we're on this tangent: in Hungary Amiga 500s were expensive enough that they were mostly owned by rich people/kids, but there was still a whole lot of people buying them (lots of overlap with the demoscene). Doubly so for the AGA (Amiga 1200?). A whole lot of people had C-64s (and Plus4/C16s), and the upgrade path was typically C64 -> A500 (sometimes skipped) -> PC (386 DX+). Almost nobody owned consoles, and - despite heavy marketing efforts - console games like super mario were almost completely unknown (I posted about this in the Scott Pilgrim thread, but nobody believed me!). In fact, up to the early-mid 2000s, the term "video games" wasn't used at all, everyone said "computer games" instead (this changed with the psx somewhat, and definitely changed when the new generation of gamers started with the xbox/ps2 instead of the pc).

And yes, Elite (and Frontier) were absolutely huge over here.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: calapine on June 09, 2014, 09:26:02 PM
While we're on this tangent: in Hungary Amiga 500s were expensive enough that they were mostly owned by rich people/kids, but there was still a whole lot of people buying them (lots of overlap with the demoscene). Doubly so for the AGA (Amiga 1200?). A whole lot of people had C-64s (and Plus4/C16s), and the upgrade path was typically C64 -> A500 (sometimes skipped) -> PC (386 DX+). Almost nobody owned consoles, and - despite heavy marketing efforts - console games like super mario were almost completely unknown (I posted about this in the Scott Pilgrim thread, but nobody believed me!). In fact, up to the early-mid 2000s, the term "video games" wasn't used at all, everyone said "computer games" instead (this changed with the psx somewhat, and definitely changed when the new generation of gamers started with the xbox/ps2 instead of the pc).

And yes, Elite (and Frontier) were absolutely huge over here.

Oh, wow. Amiga in communist Hungary? Or are we talking post-1990?


Thinking back at that time... I had a Robotron printer. And a crush on the PC salesguy. Wish was what got me involved with computers in the first place *sigh*


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 10, 2014, 01:19:46 AM
Half-serious break. The first novel set in the Elite: Dangerous universe, written by Kate Russel, is out. You can get it here for 6£ (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elite-Mostly-Harmless-Dangerous-ebook/dp/B00KUXT3DC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402343718&sr=8-1&keywords=Elite:+Mostly+Harmless&utm_content=buffer3c6af&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer) but I think you should really watch the trailer first, narrated by Kate herself who obviously has been obsessed with the original Elite since she was 12.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTdBPQfbpjU

Reading the product description hurts.  It doesn't read like she's liked Elite since she was 12, it reads like she wrote the book when she was 12.

Edit;  she's the one that wrote that Working The Cloud book.

And many of you just started giggling because that read as Working The Butt.  Sigh


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on June 10, 2014, 01:34:25 AM
I played the original Elite on my Atari ST 520, although my 8 yrs old, non-english speaking version found it a bit intimidating; in fact, I would rather watch my father play it. Plus, I was deep into the mid-late CRPG madness with Bard's Tale, Dungeon Master, Ultima, Phantasie, Gold Box; I enjoyed Frontier on the Amiga and then my father also bought it a couple years later for the PC.

Regarding the various gaming systems, here in Italy the Game Boy  and the Master System were huge, along with the Amiga.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 10, 2014, 02:02:48 AM
Half-serious break. The first novel set in the Elite: Dangerous universe, written by Kate Russel, is out. You can get it here for 6£ (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elite-Mostly-Harmless-Dangerous-ebook/dp/B00KUXT3DC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402343718&sr=8-1&keywords=Elite:+Mostly+Harmless&utm_content=buffer3c6af&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer) but I think you should really watch the trailer first, narrated by Kate herself who obviously has been obsessed with the original Elite since she was 12.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTdBPQfbpjU

Reading the product description hurts.  It doesn't read like she's liked Elite since she was 12, it reads like she wrote the book when she was 12.


This is the very first page of her book. I see no reasons to doubt her passion (turns out she had been in love with Elite since she was 10, not 12), but there are obviously many good reasons to doubt her talent.



(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Mostly%20Harmless.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on June 10, 2014, 02:50:54 AM
But as I said, Elite was priced way out of the market.  I think it was something like $80 when the most expensive games might have been $50 and the vast majority around $30 I think? 

Wow? Really? My copy of Elite for the Amstrad came as part of a boxset with The Sentinel, Starglider, Tetris and some Flight Simulator cost me £10 or something back in 1986/7. Maybe a little more than that. I still have it in my attic.

I am now feeling nostalgic about The Sentinel, an old Geoff Crammond game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 10, 2014, 02:58:39 AM
The Sentinel was so great, so creepy, so intense. I am surprised no one is doing an indie remake of it (yet).

Also, by the way, sinister reasons why the Commodore 64, then the Amiga, and ultimately the original Playstation boomed in Italy: literally no one was paying for games. Cartridges were expensive but anything on a disk or a cassette was being pirated to death. Even game stores often had the original games (for show) and then the pirated copies of everything on the side. So even if the main system was expensive, Italian kids knew that the game upkeep was going to be very cheap hence definitely worth it. Consoles on the other hand often had you stuck with very few games, even more so because trading used games wasn't an option.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on June 10, 2014, 03:48:08 AM
The Sentinel was so great, so creepy, so intense. I am surprised no one is doing an indie remake of it (yet).

Apparently, there is: Zenith (http://johnvalentine.co.uk/zenith.php?art=index), a freeware "rewrite" of The Sentinel, available since 2005


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on June 10, 2014, 05:57:59 AM
But as I said, Elite was priced way out of the market.  I think it was something like $80 when the most expensive games might have been $50 and the vast majority around $30 I think? 

Wow? Really? My copy of Elite for the Amstrad came as part of a boxset with The Sentinel, Starglider, Tetris and some Flight Simulator cost me £10 or something back in 1986/7. Maybe a little more than that. I still have it in my attic.

I am now feeling nostalgic about The Sentinel, an old Geoff Crammond game.

For me the greatest space sim will forever be Space Rogue (http://www.mobygames.com/game/space-rogue) and that's purely due to nostalgia  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 10, 2014, 06:05:43 AM
Space Rogue was fantastic. Another game I still have the original box of.  :heart:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on June 10, 2014, 07:05:53 AM
Geoff Crammond is God, and Grand Prix 4 is the best racing sim ever, still shitting on any modern racing game (not just F1 ones).

But I guess it's slightly off-topic, eh  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 10, 2014, 07:11:08 AM
You know, Geoff Crammond has been silent long enough that I sense he's probably about ready for a Kickstarter.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tmp on June 10, 2014, 09:19:10 AM
Oh, wow. Amiga in communist Hungary? Or are we talking post-1990?
They were present (and highly popular, relatively to high price) in the Eastern Europe even pre-1990, yeah. Along with Atari ST which made the other big camp. It wasn't until few years later when people started to move to 486s and such, after their graphics caught up and exceeded what a typical Amiga games could show.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 10, 2014, 11:51:45 AM
New "E3 2014 trailer" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISR4ebdGlOk), now with 20% more humans.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on June 10, 2014, 12:50:12 PM
New "E3 2014 trailer" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISR4ebdGlOk), now with 20% more humans.
That video makes me wonder if they have a new build available for premium beta soon.


Also, I really want TrackIR for this but my wife put the no go on another 150 bucks for it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tmp on June 10, 2014, 09:38:33 PM
Also, I really want TrackIR for this but my wife put the no go on another 150 bucks for it.
If you have a web cam you could always try the poor man's version that's FaceTrackNoIR (http://facetracknoir.sourceforge.net/home/default.htm).  Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6s6axA-mP0) is a video of someone running Euro Track Simulator with it as a working example.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on June 11, 2014, 01:34:57 AM
Has anyone used TrackIR on anything?  I'm interested as to how it actually helps when you're playing because, for example, if you look to the side or look up then you can't actually see what's on the screen without twisting your eyeballs round in their sockets. It all seems like "Yay, the game display moves when I move my head even though I can't actually see what's on the screen anymore and now I've got a massive headache!"


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 11, 2014, 01:43:15 AM
I haven't used it and I had your same doubts. But apparently, somehow it works great with Elite: Dangerous and it's also actually very useful given the nature of the dogfights in this game. To the point that different cockpit designs will be differently efficient.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tmp on June 11, 2014, 10:16:15 AM
Has anyone used TrackIR on anything?  I'm interested as to how it actually helps when you're playing because, for example, if you look to the side or look up then you can't actually see what's on the screen without twisting your eyeballs round in their sockets. It all seems like "Yay, the game display moves when I move my head even though I can't actually see what's on the screen anymore and now I've got a massive headache!"
From what I saw and read it works pretty good. You don't actually need to look to the side or up to the point where you'd need to twist your eyeballs, tiny movements which still allow you to view the screen normally suffice as triggers.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Muffled on June 11, 2014, 03:47:48 PM
Has anyone used TrackIR on anything?  I'm interested as to how it actually helps when you're playing because, for example, if you look to the side or look up then you can't actually see what's on the screen without twisting your eyeballs round in their sockets. It all seems like "Yay, the game display moves when I move my head even though I can't actually see what's on the screen anymore and now I've got a massive headache!"
From what I saw and read it works pretty good. You don't actually need to look to the side or up to the point where you'd need to twist your eyeballs, tiny movements which still allow you to view the screen normally suffice as triggers.

Yes, this.  You can set the sensitivity, dead zone, acceleration and all that jazz for your TrackIR to make it as sensitive as your wobbly head can control while keeping the actual movements required to a minimum.  A 120 degree tun in game could only require pointing your nose at the side of your monitor, for example.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on June 11, 2014, 03:55:09 PM
Ah, thanks both. That's useful to know. Very useful.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on June 12, 2014, 03:45:29 AM
Video from E3 with Braben doing some spiel.  Not a lot to shout about but there's some new stuff at 11:10.  (The streaming is shit though)

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/e3-2014-elite-dangerous-developer-demo/2300-6419611/ (http://www.gamespot.com/videos/e3-2014-elite-dangerous-developer-demo/2300-6419611/)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 12, 2014, 03:59:08 AM
Quite depressingly, the only new thing they unveiled at E3 is the new orbital station. Which is great and wonderful, but considering how behind they are with the December 2014 release date, it's alarming.

You know, it's not a problem to wait years for a game to be released. It's the fucking "early accesses" that are messing with us. They let you play with early builds so much that when a game finally releases (eventually, years later) you are already jaded and burned out about what they ended up delivering and whatthey had to cut.

I guess the problem is me, I should just stop buying into stupid early access.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Furiously on June 12, 2014, 09:40:55 AM
Quite depressingly, the only new thing they unveiled at E3 is the new orbital station. Which is great and wonderful, but considering how behind they are with the December 2014 release date, it's alarming.

You know, it's not a problem to wait years for a game to be released. It's the fucking "early accesses" that are messing with us. They let you play with early builds so much that when a game finally releases (eventually, years later) you are already jaded and burned out about what they ended up delivering and whatthey had to cut.

I guess the problem is me, I should just stop buying into stupid early access.

I'm refusing to play wasteland 2 until it releases. I don't want to spoil the experience.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on June 12, 2014, 10:36:07 AM
I guess the problem is me, I should just stop buying into stupid early access.

I think for you the problem isn't necessarily the early access, it is more about how much time you invest into that early access. At least I think it is based on your posts. How many hours have you put into Elite so far? If it is a ton of hours then maybe you should reduce. I'm not picking on you, I am just curious. For instance i bought Elite because I absolutely needed to fly around in space in something pretty and have only put about 10 or so hours into it. Now I am waiting for a new patch and some new features to go in, then I will play it some. I am saving my hardcore obsession for when there will be no more wipes.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 12, 2014, 10:49:59 AM
Just to clarify, I am not burned out at all. And no, I haven't put that much into it yet. Probably 15 hours. I just realized that I can't fucking wait for the game to get more content so that I can allow myself to play it without restrains, and being part of the beta makes the wait harder instead of easier.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on June 12, 2014, 10:52:53 AM
I can see that. I too am suffering from the, "Hurry up and release more shit for me to do!" as well.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 12, 2014, 03:51:58 PM
Obligatory E3 Stage Demo. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3bVeRpvctQ) Worth it for the huge joystick alone.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on June 19, 2014, 12:34:35 PM
Premium Beta 2 incoming on June 24th: three new star systems, the new space station and a new Hauler ship being added.

That's about as much update as one tweet gets you.  :grin:

EDIT: because checking my mail before Twitter would have shown me the newsletter first

(http://gallery.mailchimp.com/dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e/images/ed6570e7-895e-44e4-8a8f-cc6d16d16984.png)

(http://gallery.mailchimp.com/dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e/images/c7b75d5a-fe0f-474b-aa1d-466f6474b587.png)

Quote
The Hauler is an entry-level trading ship and is the first Zorgon Peterson ship in our lineup. It has quite lightweight construction and can carry a good deal more cargo than the Sidewinder (16 units), but has only one hardpoint.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 20, 2014, 03:33:02 AM
Can't help but keep being worried at the lack of "juicy" updates. The beta counter advances to "Premium 2" but all it does is open up 3 more systems (lowering the number of missing ones to 399.999.999.992), add one ship (bringing down the number of missing ones to 19), and add one Space Station. Not really much, considering all the gigantic amount of game systems still completely AWOL (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=19639).

I mean, this is just because Braben keeps saying everywhere that the game is coming out by the end of the year. If he admitted it's not going to be ready until late 2015 I would be very sad but less worried about being fed a bunch of anxiety generating marketing lies. I suppose this could have something to do with the fact that Frontier Developments has doubled its market-cap one year after the IPO... (http://www.cabume.co.uk/software/elite-helps-double-frontier-market-cap-one-year-on-from-ipo.html) (which I literally have no idea what it means, I don't even know what I copypasted...)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tazelbain on June 20, 2014, 07:01:02 AM
Everything is always 4-monthes away.  That's the Kickstarter way.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 24, 2014, 10:28:14 AM
New video, the Orbis Spaceport. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex2nGIvbiVI)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on June 24, 2014, 12:18:40 PM
 :Love_Letters:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Stormwaltz on June 24, 2014, 03:51:08 PM
I've been wondering if Elite's space stations are inspired by Babylon 5, or if they were both inspired by the same source.

Alas, I am too lazy/busy to do more than pose the question.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 24, 2014, 03:59:21 PM
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/2001-a-space-odyssey-wallpapers-.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on June 24, 2014, 04:00:21 PM
While I don't think they actually look all that similar (maybe color? I'm not the guy to ask about that) the whole rotating wheel space station thing is pretty normal and goes way back: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_wheel_space_station


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hawkbit on June 24, 2014, 05:18:35 PM
New video, the Orbis Spaceport. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex2nGIvbiVI)

That was completely awesome, thanks for sharing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: PalmTrees on June 24, 2014, 10:37:38 PM
There's so much room in the hangar bays, the the tiny little entrance looks so dumb. I get that it's small to provide a challenge, but I just can't get over how ridiculously impractical it is.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 24, 2014, 11:27:45 PM
It's LORE. Everyone would freak out if they made it bigger.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on June 25, 2014, 10:28:03 AM
Is there (supposed to be) a challenge to docking at a station?  I'm already suspicious of of the traffic control system.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on June 25, 2014, 10:31:47 AM
Is there (supposed to be) a challenge to docking at a station?  I'm already suspicious of of the traffic control system.

I am definitely not an elitist or anything, but I am amazed at how many people can't dock in this game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on June 25, 2014, 10:45:44 AM
I sort of have an immersion problem with an intergalactic civilization that hasn't invented basic autopilot.  Instead, some people want to land a P38 Lightning on a carrier deck IN SPACE.  As long as I know which game this is, I'm all good.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Father mike on June 25, 2014, 12:39:00 PM
I'm reaching back to  the Commodore 64 version here, but there was an autopilot you could buy.  But it was so expensive, that by the time you could afford it, you had mastered the manual dock and didn't need it.

But yeah, it's just an ELITE thing.  Not having tiny, rapidly rotating docks would be a major omission.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 25, 2014, 02:51:57 PM
The Docking Computer. 

Utterly worthless, yet usually the first purchase an Elite pilot made.

Especially in later versions when it simply docked you instantly when you were close enough to the station.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 25, 2014, 02:54:06 PM
Yes, as someone else said, the docking computer is a thing but you have to make enough money to buy it.
Autopilot, to travel from star to star, was in Elite 2 but they could cut it here to avoid the EVE (another game inspired by Elite) effect where you read books and watch TV while the game plays itself.

About some of the peculiar Elite details, you have to keep in mind that this franchise is LEGEND. Maybe not in the US, but it is on a league of its own in the rest of the world to the point that it has invented a genre, inspired countless games and influenced armies of designers. It's only natural that some of its more recognizable characteristics are preserved across the newer version. The shapes of the starbases and some of the ugliest spaceships in the history of games are among these.

Finally, no in Elite: Dangerous there is no challenge whatsoever in docking (unlike in the original Elite). All it takes is 3 minutes of practice and, at worse, some key remapping if you are uncomfortable with the default. It is really really easy to dock but it is also quite satisfying and immersive so they left it in the way it is as a tribute to the series and because it feels right. You'll see when you'll try it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: pants on June 25, 2014, 03:45:38 PM
Yep, just want to say +1.  It wouldn't be an elite game if you didn't plow into the side of a spacestation while docking.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 26, 2014, 02:48:31 AM
Ugliest spaceships ?

You take that back, goddammit.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 26, 2014, 03:07:27 AM
I actually think they are the prettiest!  :drillf:
But everyone keeps telling me I'm blinded by nostalgia.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on June 26, 2014, 05:02:22 AM
Especially in later versions when it simply docked you instantly when you were close enough to the station.

I'd argue in Frontier and First Encounters it was mandatory (which is why you started with one, although I recall it was one and the same as the autopilot) because the newtonian physics made the game impossible [for me] otherwise.

It was usually the first thing to you lost in a firefight (prompting a reload)

It was also really stupid and would try and fly you through a planet to reach a space port on the surface on the other side!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on June 26, 2014, 05:04:27 AM
some of the ugliest spaceships in the history of games

I still prefer the original Anaconda to this new one.

That said once I finally got to fly one (Frontier) it was no longer the biggest and therefore just wouldn't do

Mines the Panther clipper with enough shields to just ram the hostiles (and an auto hull repair system) :-)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tmp on June 26, 2014, 06:09:27 AM
About some of the peculiar Elite details, you have to keep in mind that this franchise is LEGEND. Maybe not in the US, but it is on a league of its own in the rest of the world to the point that it has invented a genre, inspired countless games and influenced armies of designers. It's only natural that some of its more recognizable characteristics are preserved across the newer version. The shapes of the starbases and some of the ugliest spaceships in the history of games are among these.
Did they keep the "Check the other side" notices on the starbases, too? I couldn't tell in that latest trailer.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 26, 2014, 06:12:15 AM
HAH! Sadly, no. That was glorious in Frontier.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on June 26, 2014, 09:19:32 AM
I'm not trying to start anything, really, but I'm going to be cautious.  Nostalgia doesn't get me to play a game anymore, because nostalgia doesn't magically wipe away the other concerns of my adult life.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on June 26, 2014, 11:13:13 AM
Did they keep the "Check the other side" notices on the starbases, too? I couldn't tell in that latest trailer.

It's a stretch goal for when they get 1 million players signed up for Premium Beta.





 :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 26, 2014, 11:49:35 AM
Heh, you know, wrong game.

Here, Braben believes Elite: Dangerous' steep early access price was "the very best way to do it". (http://www.pcgamesn.com/elite-dangerous/david-braben-still-believes-elite-dangerous-steep-early-access-price-was-very-best-way-do-it)


Quote
Elite: Dangerous’ Kickstarter campaign laid out a gradually decreasing price plan for the game as it progressed through beta. Players could pay £100 for premium access from the end of May, £50 for the following standard beta, or a £35 pre-order to enter the game at its gamma phase just before release.

Frontier have stuck to that initial plan - but we wondered whether Braben still thought it was a good idea. He does.

“We knew how many people we wanted on the alpha, and it may seem like a cruel and merciless way of doing it,” Braben told PCGamesN. “But that’s the way of getting people who are most likely to be dedicated and genuinely want it.”

Asked whether the premium beta was made up simply of the richest Elite players rather than the most dedicated, Braben replied: “Well, a bit of both actually”.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: jakonovski on June 26, 2014, 12:02:20 PM
"Let's pretend we didn't do it for the money"


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tazelbain on June 26, 2014, 12:06:19 PM
As someone totally plans to buy this one day on a steam sale for pennies on dollar, thanks suckers!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on June 27, 2014, 07:50:15 AM
I am desperately trying to relocate it, but I swear I heard him say in a video interview that he was not considering steam distribution.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on June 27, 2014, 09:08:45 AM
Or possibly any distribution. :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 27, 2014, 09:56:44 AM
That sucks, about Steam. I wonder, these days there are very few games, especially indie, that don't plan to get on Steam. I don't know how it works but I have to ask. Why would anyone not gonna get on a platform that is automatically gonna give you 50 times more visibility than you have? Even if they take a cut out of your profit, indie games are pretty much guaranteed an increase in sales. What am I missing?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on June 27, 2014, 09:58:03 AM
As someone totally plans to buy this one day on a steam sale for pennies on dollar, thanks suckers!

This. I am looking forward to playing it, but I have no qualms waiting until it is reasonably priced.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 27, 2014, 10:35:12 AM
Newsletter #29 is out. (http://eepurl.com/XRaqj) "Standard" beta will start July 29th which means the access prices drops from 120 to 60. Keep in mind that the game will cost 40 at launch.

At the same time, the 120 "Lifetime" package will be retired. The Lifetime package will give you access for free to every expansion that could be developed. Their roadmap (which is not binding, heh) is:

Quote
We do intend to release small, free updates after launch, but expansions that include significant new features and content will be charged for separately.  For example, our current roadmap is to add (in no particular order):

    Landing/ driving / prospecting on airless rocky planets, moons & asteroids
    Walking around interiors and combative boarding of other ships
    Combat and other interactions with other players and AIs in the internal areas of star ports
    Accessing richly detailed planetary surfaces
    Availability of giant ‘executive control’ ships to players

This means that if we are as successful as we hope to be, you will still be benefiting from the fantastic early support you gave us for a long time to come.

EDIT: Added an impressive 114 pages long "Game Manual" with all that is supposed to be in the game at launch, filled with pictures and detailed info. (http://www.mediafire.com/download/vide3a20jc8ntdt/Elite+Dangerous.The+Beginning.+Early+Game+Designs.+2014.pdf)



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on June 29, 2014, 06:20:44 AM
New video, the Orbis Spaceport. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex2nGIvbiVI)

That was completely awesome, thanks for sharing.

Sorry for the late reply; video was ok, but that ship had its main engines on while flying at a constant speed and while slowing down to land, and that's just wrong.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tmp on June 29, 2014, 03:29:17 PM
Sorry for the late reply; video was ok, but that ship had its main engines on while flying at a constant speed and while slowing down to land, and that's just wrong.
It's one of these "old Frontier had it" things iirc -- the ships in the game would have engines permanently "idle" with small scale flame effect, and they'd flare up during maneuvers and such. Not unlike modern jets.

For that matter I think the same complaint (and explanation) happened recently with the Other Space Sim. :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 30, 2014, 03:15:24 PM
There's a new function in game that allows you to take very high resolution screenshots. Well, here's one.



-Spoilered so it won't take up 2/3rds of the goddamned page- WAP


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 01, 2014, 11:03:33 AM
Nice! Where did that come from Falc?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 01, 2014, 11:11:27 AM
Some random user posted it. The thing is, and I am not sure how this works, since the latest patch when you hit Alt+f10 in game it takes a super high resolution screenshot. SOmething like 5400x3070, anyway very high. I didn't know games could take screenshots at a higher resolution than the one you are playing at, but apparently this is the case so everyone can take incredbly scenic screenshots. I guess it's their way to subtly advertise: fill the internet with amazing user submitted screenshots.

EDIT: Really not sure how this works but I just took one and it came out with a resolution of 7680x4320, a 98MB file. Whoa.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 01, 2014, 02:52:10 PM
Awesome.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 01, 2014, 04:27:51 PM
I just took this. It's 7680x4320, but I converted it from .bmp to .jpg so it went from 98MB to 18MB.

This is the infamous d12-shaped star base. The level of detail is quite crazy, and I must admit that before these hi res screens I've never really noticed.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Stormwaltz on July 01, 2014, 10:28:04 PM
I didn't know games could take screenshots at a higher resolution than the one you are playing at

LotRO had the ability to do this before it was released. I think a dev build, or some undocumented command? I remember seeing some of those ultra-res screenshots printed out three feet wide and hung as posters in their office.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 01, 2014, 10:42:25 PM
It's taking the screens at 4x your resolution. Yours is 7680x4320 which is 1080p x 4 in each direction, mine are 10240x5760 which is 2560x1440 x 4. Doesn't anti-aliasing work in a similar way? I.e. internally render a higher resolution frame and then pixel-bin down?

Takes about 5 seconds to take the pic on my PC so I have to choose my moment carefully!

Edit: made an album: http://min.us/mDhZAfKeOEQfH


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on July 02, 2014, 03:12:29 AM
Those shots alone nearly sell me on the game


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 02, 2014, 03:18:36 AM
I'm currently flying a Hauler but hopefully be in a more combat-capable ship in a couple of days. Once I am I'll try and get some more exciting pics :)

I was already signed up for the £50 beta stage but decided this was the game I was prepared to take a risk on and upgraded it to the £100 premium, plus expansion pass included in that.

It is giving the 11-yr old me fits of delight. I feel like I'm playing the same old Elite from all those years ago, but it looks as good as the game my imagination conjured up. It's superb with a TrackIR and HOTAS and I imagine it'd be amazing with an Oculus Rift if they ever get the resolution up to a reasonable level.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 02, 2014, 03:30:12 AM
Did you know you can land your Hauler on the bridge of an Anaconda?  :awesome_for_real:




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 02, 2014, 04:02:45 AM
Lols!  :awesome_for_real:  Now...can the Anaconda land in a station with the hauler on top?  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 02, 2014, 09:05:59 AM
Only for hardcore Elite fans, David Braben talking for an hour about Elite, the origins, the funding, the development process, and science, at Nordic Game Conference 2014. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOYhoFYIWmw)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 02, 2014, 09:19:15 AM
Listened to half of that, got annoyed with how vague he was about things like PvP/griefing. I don't think he's played EVE.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 02, 2014, 09:29:48 AM
Ha! I noticed that too. It gets worse: they ask him a specific question about bounties and exploiting bounties, and he completely fumbles basically saying "I have no idea how to prevent that but la de da!"

Let's remember though that Elite Dangerous can be played "solo", meaning you can switch to an instance of the universe which is still influenced by the megaserver events (prices, supply and demand, politics), but where you cannot meet other players. I am afraid that they rely on this feature more than they actually believe they can stifle griefing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MisterNoisy on July 02, 2014, 08:13:31 PM
Ha! I noticed that too. It gets worse: they ask him a specific question about bounties and exploiting bounties, and he completely fumbles basically saying "I have no idea how to prevent that but la de da!"

Let's remember though that Elite Dangerous can be played "solo", meaning you can switch to an instance of the universe which is still influenced by the megaserver events (prices, supply and demand, politics), but where you cannot meet other players. I am afraid that they rely on this feature more than they actually believe they can stifle griefing.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind (and would probably prefer) a straight single-player release, especially if it would speed up development.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on July 03, 2014, 01:02:28 AM
I cant afford Early access prices but I will probably buy this game at launch. And it will be Solo joy for me. The joy of multiplayer can fuck right off as I know it will be populated with GAMERS.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on July 03, 2014, 02:29:29 AM
I cant afford Early access prices but I will probably buy this game at launch. And it will be Solo joy for me. The joy of multiplayer can fuck right off as I know it will be populated with GAMERS.

I'll definitely buy this game when it's actually released unless they do something totally horrible to the single-player game. I do not feel the need to dilute the playing experience with any alpha/beta gaming personally (though I do appreciate Falconeer's comments etc on how the game is shaping up).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 03, 2014, 11:47:19 AM
Newsletter #30 is out. (http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=ddf8da5f8b&e=dfc991ddf1)

Some useful tidbits from it:

- With Beta 1, starting July 29th, the Communication System will be in the game.

Quote
As we teased last week in our Peek of the Week, a big new feature in Beta 1 is player to player hailing (communications).  

Again there are a couple of options here, text and voice, and of course you will have the choice whether to accept, cut short or simply ignore any hail, and report what you consider to be any abuse.  All hails, voice and text, may be affected by the state of your ship - for example if your systems start to overheat in battle, you’ll notice a degradation in audio quality of voice hails as a consequence.

- The Crime and Punishment system will be introduced too:

Quote
Beta 1 sees significant new code systems added that allow authority ships protect law abiding pilots and respond better to crime.

If an authority ship or space station witnesses a crime (it takes place within its radar range), it is “detected” and reported. A number of police vessels will then target the offender and attack. If there are not enough ships available, reinforcements will be called and will hyperspace jump in after a short delay.

If a crime is only reported by the victim, it is classed as “undetected”. In this case, a number of police vessels will be dispatched to the area and scan ships for criminal behaviour. If any is detected, they will attack. Reinforcements will be called in should the threat be large enough to require it.

Crime response is generally carried out by Faulcon de Lacy Viper Mk IIs.  It is effective, but not instantaneous. The size and timing of the response is based on the security level of the jurisdiction you are in and the danger level posed by the offender (both bounty level and ship threat).

No-fire zones around star ports stations will become more meaningful in Beta 1, too. The no-fire zone represents the reach of the starport, both in terms of safety and detection, and any crimes committed within the zone are detected.  This does NOT include crimes that need a scan to be detected, such as carrying illegal cargo.

Once a crime is detected, if the starport’s own security detail isn’t close enough to respond, then fast response units are dispatched to rain vengeance on any criminal elements in the area!

Fines are also being introduced, to give the authorities a proportionate level of response rather than shooting to kill regardless of the severity of a crime. Minor crimes and non-threatening infractions will incur a fine, which can be paid off to your local space station authority representative.

If you don’t pay off your fines, they will initially attract compound interest and then, once the authorities lose patience with your tardiness they will be converted into a bounty, and lead to you being hunted down.

- Finally, ship decals will be introduced. Here's a sample picture. I consider them quite hideous (here's a higher resolution picture (http://elite.frontier.co.uk/images/newsletter_2014_07_03/3.jpg)), but it's good to know there will be a lot of customization options.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Decals%203.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hawkbit on July 03, 2014, 02:24:24 PM
I cant afford Early access prices but I will probably buy this game at launch. And it will be Solo joy for me. The joy of multiplayer can fuck right off as I know it will be populated with GAMERS.

I'm not following development; are they going to add a way to make the game co-op?  I could see an F13 only server being really fun, focus on more of the econ and working together aspects of stuff. 

To limit it to only solo or full open world just seems limiting in scope.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 03, 2014, 02:32:37 PM
Yes, totally.

There is going to be three way to play it:

- Full open, as in your traditional MMORPG.
- Solo. It's still online and the universe is influenced by the action and trades of other players, but you won't see them and they won't see you. You will constantly be in your own instance.
- Co-op. You will create friends list and will have the game constantly generating private instances for you and the people in your friend list.

There are some technical names that they are throwing around for such a system, but basically yes you will be able to play the entire game with your friends as if you were on a private server. Considering how huge the universe is I am pretty convinced that this will make the "all open" world pretty empty (and full to the brim of PvP wolves), but as they say they are making the game they want to play themselves, and Braben isn't that much into PvP. So he wants to offer a real multiplayer galaxy, but also wants to make sure that he himself can avoid PvP entirely if kids start ruining his fun.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 04, 2014, 04:34:26 PM
New lovely video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQCDPnd6rqg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hawkbit on July 04, 2014, 07:19:37 PM
Please let us know when the buy-in is around $50-60.  I can't justify more than that, but I really want to play this game. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Nebu on July 04, 2014, 08:20:32 PM
I'm looking forward to someone here hosting a multiplayer coop game.  Would be fun if we had a set of ground rules in place. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 05, 2014, 02:12:04 AM
Just to clarify, according to their plans no one will have to host a game. A co-op game will always happen on their servers, it's just that you will specify that you only want to play with some people you've specified from your friend list, so those will be the only people able to see you and they will be the only people you will be able to see.

You will still exist on the same mega-server with everyone else, theoretically, but invisible for everyone except the people in your "friends" list, and with everyone not in your friends list invisible to you.

This function is not in the game yet though.

About the price, it's dropping to 75 US $ on July 29th, as the game enters "Standard Beta". After that, it will drop to the final price of 50 US $ around December, for the official release.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 05, 2014, 04:04:01 AM
I was unsure about the single-player/friends-only/full-multiplayer plan at first, but it's growing on me.

I've been doing some combat the last couple of days, having got into a Cobra Mk III and kitted it out. The routine is almost always: turn up at combat zone, pick faction, shoot a few NPCs. Before long another player or (more usually 2-4) turn up too, often in an Anaconda. They see me there, pick the opposite faction and blow me to tiny pieces before I can escape. I get the odd kill or two in return but there's literally nothing I can do against Anacondas, which cost 10-15 times more than my Cobra.

Now I know there's no police system etc. yet, but without the ability to completely avoid other players somehow I think it would quickly become unfun.

The combat however is generally great. Balance issues aside, it's very satisfying and engaging. It's fast but tactical at the same time and requires a lot of different skills - situational awareness, spatial awareness, energy & heat management, good speed control. It's really difficult and incredibly fun!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on July 05, 2014, 07:29:48 AM
I don't know if you know or not, but when a couple of player anacondas jump in, the best move is to jump out.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Stormwaltz on July 05, 2014, 01:03:55 PM
Please let us know when the buy-in is around $50-60.  I can't justify more than that, but I really want to play this game.

You can get it for $50 now with a flat preorder. (https://store.zaonce.net/elite-dangerous-cat/elite-dangerous.html) That's what I did - you don't get into beta with that amount, but... eh, I just don't get the whole "play before it's done" mindset.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 05, 2014, 02:58:50 PM
Fan made video of the day. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlqEQjqdpkk)  :awesome_for_real:

From the same user, two videos showing off.... space. And the five star systems presente in Premium Beta. Just space, stars and planets, seriously.

A Tale of Five Systems, part 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnaLEb0Ruzk)

A Tale of Five Systems, part 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODxEcPDu2Tc)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 08, 2014, 07:03:15 AM
If you paid for the Standard Beta, which begins on July 29th, you can download the single player client and start playing offline right now. (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=25169)

It's the ten solo combat missions from the Premium Client.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 14, 2014, 03:12:23 AM
Newsletter #31 is out (http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=ecf2198bb5) - not much that's new apart from an overview of the fuel system that is going to be introduced.  Apparently fuel will be used during normal flight as well as hyperspace jumps which I'm a bit  :oh_i_see: about. On the other hand, it might make life a little more interesting I suppose.

Also, a video showing E:D's solar flares and coronal mass ejection (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGupxOG853I&feature=youtu.be) (not real time apparently) which I'm liking.

Obligatory HD pic:

(http://elite.frontier.co.uk/images/newsletter_2014_07_11/06.jpg) (http://elite.frontier.co.uk/images/newsletter_2014_07_11/06.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 14, 2014, 07:01:15 AM
I think fuel could be a really cool feature, giving even more importance to logistcs and distances, and certainly giving different roles to different ships.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Nebu on July 14, 2014, 07:40:47 AM
Forcing pilots to consider multiple-jump routes would make for an interesting meta.  It would get you thinking about trade routes in terms of both commodity markets and fuel stops. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on July 14, 2014, 08:29:05 AM
What happens if you run out of fuel?  Stranded forever in space?  Move at a slower speed?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Nebu on July 14, 2014, 08:30:32 AM
What happens if you run out of fuel?  Stranded forever in space?  Move at a slower speed?

You call AAA and get a tow!  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 14, 2014, 08:31:45 AM
What happens if you run out of fuel?  Stranded forever in space?  Move at a slower speed?

Quote
If you get into the unfortunate situation where you run out of fuel, you will have reserve power you can call upon (you will be fined if you use your reserve tank, and will be forced to refill it when you next dock), and if that doesn’t do the trick, a distress beacon to call for assistance.  Unfortunately it might also attract those who take a different view of your situation…

The last part about the distress beacons is pretty cool. Basically, a nav point will appear to everyone "nearby" (no idea what nearby means), but as they said it could attract anybody. So depending on the value of your cargo, deploying a distress beacon could open up interesting scenarios.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Nebu on July 14, 2014, 08:35:03 AM
If you get into the unfortunate situation where you run out of fuel, you will have reserve power you can call upon (you will be fined if you use your reserve tank, and will be forced to refill it when you next dock), and if that doesn’t do the trick, a distress beacon to call for assistance.  Unfortunately it might also attract those who take a different view of your situation…

That sounds pretty cool, actually...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 14, 2014, 09:08:41 AM
Could also work as bait.

Player 1 deliberately runs out of fuel, lets distress beacon deploy. Player 2 frameshifts in to gank poor unfuelled Player 1 and promptly gets WTFd by Players 3 & 4 who were in silent running nearby.  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on July 14, 2014, 09:19:25 AM
Reserve power = easy mode.  Heads, pikes.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 14, 2014, 09:29:16 AM
Forcing pilots to consider multiple-jump routes would make for an interesting meta.  It would get you thinking about trade routes in terms of both commodity markets and fuel stops. 

The multiple jump routes is fine - that's like the original Elite which only gave you 7LY worth of fuel. IIRC, Frontier expanded on this to give you different hyperdrives with different ranges (which were also possibly also based on shp size).  You also had standard hydrogen fuel and military fuel which was better but dumped radioactive waste into your hold so you'd have to jettison it (because you couldn't sell it, only pay for someone to dispose of it for you) which was an interesting trade off.  I'm fine with all that.

It's consuming fuel while flying around normally that raises a flag - I wonder if it will introduce a level of meta that makes it more work and less fun. You can imagine jumping into a sector, finding there's a massive battle going on and thinking "yeah, would love to join in but gotta go refuel" and by the time you're done, the battle's over.

But we'll see. At the moment, my biggest ponderance is whether to shell out for the beta or not (answer is probably yes but I kinda don't want to play it until release) and whether the lifetime expansion access will actually be worth £35.  The clocks ticking!  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 14, 2014, 10:02:33 AM
It does say:

Quote
Fuel use in normal space is a good deal less than in supercruise, but even then a single tank will last a significant amount of time. In comparison, hyperspace jumps are extremely thirsty.

But, that does beg the question, if non-hyperspace fuel use is so low then why bother with it at all?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hawkbit on July 14, 2014, 10:48:34 AM
Is fuel intended to be a traded commodity?  Fuel running and fuel monopolies could be interesting, but balancing that has to be a nightmare.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 14, 2014, 11:10:00 AM
Because Star skimming is fun.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 14, 2014, 12:04:12 PM
Because Star skimming is fun.

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-txS9fqzRQm0/U1ccNJSLfqI/AAAAAAAAia8/FvbMoYgMfp0/w506-h281/3124962-not%252Bsure%252Bif%252Bserious%252Bzod.gif)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 18, 2014, 10:45:19 AM
Newsletter #32 is out (http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=ac1081437f&e=3c9b88d68d), along with a seriously flashy new website. (http://elite.frontier.co.uk/).

Looks like Braben has decided to turn things around as much as he can and challenge Star Citizen without holding punches. This is somehwat confirmed by the video they just released showing off the cockpits (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiTRJpvbmhU) you will be able to walk through at some point in the future... but not yet. He must have thought that Roberts' idea of banking on what will come instead of what you already have is somehow legit.

They, of course, mention boarding other ships too in this newsletter. And walking around on planets :oh_i_see: Something I would be very excited about if it didn't really border with the kind of dreamware Chris Roberts is a master at.

Here's a concept of the planetar surface stuff.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20planetaryLanding_2.jpg)



EDIT: Added Planetary Landing Concept picture because pictures!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 18, 2014, 11:13:45 AM
God, I love the Cobra Mk III


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 18, 2014, 11:17:03 AM
Have you seen the real thing?

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Cobra%20DSC_0011_zpsc1e73c15.jpg)

More pics:



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 18, 2014, 11:34:20 AM
Jesus, could they not have found a better model to drape over it ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 18, 2014, 11:48:31 AM
Are you talking about the woman? That's not a model, that's the person who made it. She got invited to E3 after handcrafting that wonder and is now working for Braben to build some ships for him.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 19, 2014, 02:14:23 AM
I clearly need green.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 19, 2014, 01:52:23 PM
Chris Roberts took the time to subtly belittle Elite: Dangerous in his most recent interview. (http://www.gamespot.com/articles/star-citizen-and-crowdfunding-an-interview-with-ch/1100-6421207/) Classy.

Quote
I think that's why so many people are excited for and have backed Star Citizen, because it is the ambition of the vision, right? You know, Elite Dangerous looks great, right, and they're out there, but they're not even close to the level that we are, partly because we've put this vision out there, and everyone says "That's f****** crazy, but you know, I would love to see it happen." And I think people are signing up for that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hoax on July 19, 2014, 02:13:36 PM
If neither of these assholes makes an actual game that is actually fun to play the I told you so is going to be ash in my mouth despite what a bunch of retards all the backer/founder/$1k+ investors are and how enjoyable such an I told you so should be.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on July 19, 2014, 03:31:07 PM
Chris Roberts took the time to subtly belittle Elite: Dangerous in his most recent interview. (http://www.gamespot.com/articles/star-citizen-and-crowdfunding-an-interview-with-ch/1100-6421207/) Classy.

Quote
I think that's why so many people are excited for and have backed Star Citizen, because it is the ambition of the vision, right? You know, Elite Dangerous looks great, right, and they're out there, but they're not even close to the level that we are, partly because we've put this vision out there, and everyone says "That's f****** crazy, but you know, I would love to see it happen." And I think people are signing up for that.
.
Well, I think he's right.  We have somehow ended up in a gaming market where people are willing top lay down serious cash for something they'd "love to see happen."  Of course, I'll take a good concept that actually happened over a great concept I'd love to see happen any day...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 19, 2014, 04:01:32 PM
One thing that is worth noting though, is that there isn't much more planned and announced for Star Citizen that isn't planned and announced for Elite: Dangerous. Star Citizen has better looking ships, which look incredible when they fall apart. But what exactly is more ambitious about it?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hoax on July 19, 2014, 07:00:27 PM
Really? Prior to your post about Elite I thought all the walking in your ship, walking on planets, boarding ships bullshit that doesn't sound like it will ever work I thought everything beyond spaceships going pewpew was Star Citizen only.

My impression was Elite was a game that would actually get finished because it is actually a game not a cult and it was more like modern Freespace, without all the frills bells and whistles. Just little ships blowing eachother up and maybe big ships and basically nothing not directly related to blowing shit up.

Star Citizen was we're going to make Eve plus anything Eve is missing plus walking around and opening up shipping containers plus everything from SWG social and then some plus you lead boarding parties in epic battles through the hallways of enemy ships or something so a full fps combat system as well and I guess full boarding party and defense AI so you can lead squads of AI's to fight squads of AI's to do... whatever you do at the end of a boarding mission, kill the captain and take the ship? A ransom system?

That sounded like a lot of features in SC that weren't in Elite.

Basically Elite was Freespace 20 and Star Citizen was what we imagined when MMO's were coming out in the 90's and we believed in virtual worlds that would be so all encompassing that you would only play that game for the next decade because it would have EVERYTHING.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 20, 2014, 02:41:47 AM
So me and a friend made a video, and might be turning it into a regular thing:

The Witchspace Diaries, Episode 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fpXDaApsG0).

It's just a bit of fun for now, there's some technical issues to work out, and it contains British accents. Consider yourselves warned! :awesome_for_real:



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 20, 2014, 02:42:03 AM
Really? Prior to your post about Elite I thought all the walking in your ship, walking on planets, boarding ships bullshit that doesn't sound like it will ever work I thought everything beyond spaceships going pewpew was Star Citizen only.

My impression was Elite was a game that would actually get finished because it is actually a game not a cult and it was more like modern Freespace, without all the frills bells and whistles. Just little ships blowing eachother up and maybe big ships and basically nothing not directly related to blowing shit up.

Star Citizen was we're going to make Eve plus anything Eve is missing plus walking around and opening up shipping containers plus everything from SWG social and then some plus you lead boarding parties in epic battles through the hallways of enemy ships or something so a full fps combat system as well and I guess full boarding party and defense AI so you can lead squads of AI's to fight squads of AI's to do... whatever you do at the end of a boarding mission, kill the captain and take the ship? A ransom system?

That sounded like a lot of features in SC that weren't in Elite.

Basically Elite was Freespace 20 and Star Citizen was what we imagined when MMO's were coming out in the 90's and we believed in virtual worlds that would be so all encompassing that you would only play that game for the next decade because it would have EVERYTHING.


Yes, at first it sounded like that to everyone including me. But as the plans for Elite has been made clear it seems there isn't much that will be in Star Citizen that won't be in Elite too. The only things I can think of are the cinematics, assuming they will be in Star Citizen too and not just in Squadron 42.

This is what I've been trying to tell MrBloodworth for a while. There's a lot of misinformation about Elite Dangerous. The ambition of the project is insane and in many ways even crazier than Star Citizen's, and that's why I've expressed my concerns many times. But again, all I want to point out is not that Elite Dangerous will end up being the better game, or a feature-complete one, just that the whole "Star Citizen is much more ambitious than Elite Dangerous" seems to be based on hype or just misconceptions about the planned Elite Dangerous feature list which lots of people conveniently keep ignoring.

Anyway, walking around your ship, boarding other ships, landing on planets and even exploring planets surfaces is all supposed to be in Elite Dangerous too. Not by the end of this year's planned launch, sure, but how is that a problem when the other game that announced these features is not even a game yet?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 20, 2014, 03:47:26 AM
The thing that makes me feel more confident in E:D is that so much of the "extra stuff" has always been slated for expansions rather than initial release and that they are contingent on the success of that initial release.

As far as I'm aware the E:D release won't have walking in stations, planetary landings, boarding ships, giant executive control ships, etc. Not that the initial release isn't still ambitious, just more realistic than if all of that was planned at once.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 20, 2014, 05:39:47 AM
Maybe it is me but I don't see any difference in the ambition of game that is almost ready and put some of the biggest features up for expansions, and the ambition of a game that is supposed to come out with those features at launch, but it'll probably launch after the other game's expansions. They are planning and announced the same features, and they are both far far away from delivering them. How is Star Citizen, to use Robert's word, "on a completely different level"?

I wonder if he's deluded or he's just feeding his cultists hoping they will spread his verb and take the wind out of Braben's sail.

Anyway, awesome video Apocrypha, please keep doing it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on July 20, 2014, 07:24:17 AM
It's just a bit of fun for now, there's some technical issues to work out, and it contains British accents. Consider yourselves warned! :awesome_for_real:
British accents are usually a plus to me.  Except I tend to ignore what's being said and just enjoy the sound.  Too much BBC programming as a kid I think.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 20, 2014, 08:11:59 AM
I wonder if he's deluded or he's just feeding his cultists hoping they will spread his verb and take the wind out of Braben's sail.

I think that is the case. I know it's inevitable but I'd happily not see open competition or any nastiness between the two games. I think they both have their niche and I think the PC space sim genre is so bereft of good options that there's room for both.

Quote
Anyway, awesome video Apocrypha, please keep doing it.

Thank you :)  We will, we had a lot of fun!

British accents are usually a plus to me.  Except I tend to ignore what's being said and just enjoy the sound.  Too much BBC programming as a kid I think.

Ah, that's what I call the David Attenborough Effect. I fell asleep on the sofa as a kid listening to him narrating nature programs that I now just associate his voice with deep, peaceful slumber. Unfortunately neither Mike nor myself have an accent anything like his.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 20, 2014, 03:02:48 PM
So me and a friend made a video, and might be turning it into a regular thing:

The Witchspace Diaries, Episode 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fpXDaApsG0).

It's just a bit of fun for now, there's some technical issues to work out, and it contains British accents. Consider yourselves warned! :awesome_for_real:

Excellent work! Like this a lot.

EDIT: Any chance of a link to your dreadnought video as mentioned in the video?  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 20, 2014, 10:51:46 PM
Cheers :)

And sure: http://youtu.be/9z4avoDtfQU (http://youtu.be/9z4avoDtfQU) - it's a bit rough, was my first go at recording!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 21, 2014, 01:24:02 AM
Excellent!  :awesome_for_real:

The only downside of that video is it may have just pushed me over the line to pull the trigger on a beta purchase.  :ye_gods:  I still don't know whether to stump up for the life time expansions or not though. I'm thinking probably not.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 21, 2014, 02:18:38 AM
Heheh sorry!  :awesome_for_real:

For me it was a question of wanting to support it, and I'd already decided I was going to get the lifetime expansion pass so an extra £15 for premium beta access was easy to justify to myself. Plus I'd just been paid a large invoice for photographing lots of handbags so I went crazy and got a HOTAS & TrackIR too.  :uhrr:

Hopefully future vids will have webcam footage from both Mike & myself, less wobbling about due to the TrackIRs and, if we can work out how to do it, game feeds from both of us, interspersed if not concurrent. I need a better mic too, and/or a pop-guard!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on July 21, 2014, 10:36:30 AM
I clearly need green.


Language barrier.  Alternately, some people are too serious.

Never change.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 22, 2014, 05:14:14 AM
Heheh sorry!  :awesome_for_real:

For me it was a question of wanting to support it, and I'd already decided I was going to get the lifetime expansion pass so an extra £15 for premium beta access was easy to justify to myself. Plus I'd just been paid a large invoice for photographing lots of handbags so I went crazy and got a HOTAS & TrackIR too.  :uhrr:

I caved - I'm in. Didn't go for life time expansions though - still don't feel comfortable on that gamble. And as much as I'd like a HOTAS, I'll be sticking with my old Evo for now.

Or maybe classic 1984 keyboard configuration!

Bloody hell I'm out of practice with flying Elite style though. And that Recon Wing mission took a bit of blind luck on my part!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 22, 2014, 06:39:12 AM
Nice one :)

One week today the next beta phase starts and there'll be some social tools hopefully. If anyone is up for it I'd love to get a few of us together for shits'n'giggles, test out the grouping mechanics etc, maybe record it at the same time.  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 22, 2014, 06:59:28 AM
I'd be willing to try something like that, of course. Can't commit to next week right now, but I'll try to keep it open. Group testing is nice and there will be a lot of new stuff with the patch, including ship-to-ship voice communications.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 24, 2014, 06:04:11 AM
Witchspace Diaries Episode 2 is online now:

http://youtu.be/sfmxchF4Oz4 (http://youtu.be/sfmxchF4Oz4)

This'll be the last one with me using a terrible microphone, I'll sound much better in the next one, honest.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 24, 2014, 10:30:53 AM
Good work.  :thumbs_up:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 25, 2014, 02:33:37 AM
Elite:Dangerous remix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODaiPJRyyxA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODaiPJRyyxA)

(A little overlong but given the lack of in-game tools or even ability to hide the HUD, I'm quite impressed by this.)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 25, 2014, 04:12:21 AM
OMG that's incredible!  :heart:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 25, 2014, 04:33:40 AM
Almost as nifty as your flyby past Mike's Space Winnebago!  :why_so_serious:

(http://i.imgur.com/IlsDsp5.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 25, 2014, 04:49:39 AM
Lol :)

I'm going to try and convince him to arm that up and take it into battle for the next show.  :awesome_for_real:  (Once we sort out the bloody audio issues that is.... )


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 25, 2014, 07:03:58 AM
Elite:Dangerous remix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODaiPJRyyxA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODaiPJRyyxA)

(A little overlong but given the lack of in-game tools or even ability to hide the HUD, I'm quite impressed by this.)

That video is fucking incredible.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mortriden on July 25, 2014, 07:44:01 AM
Lol :)

I'm going to try and convince him to arm that up and take it into battle for the next show.  :awesome_for_real:  (Once we sort out the bloody audio issues that is.... )

Just to throw my hat in as well, you two guys are making me want to buy in early.  Nothing else has made me want to do that.  It's great listening to you two guys.  Keep it up.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 25, 2014, 11:10:18 AM
Thank you Mortriden :)

New feature coming on Tuesday in Standard Beta, trade routes:
http://youtu.be/FourfVPc9Zc (http://youtu.be/FourfVPc9Zc)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 25, 2014, 11:54:47 AM
One does not simply supercruise to Morgor...

(I'll get my coat!)

Serious note though - that's all very pretty but what is actually showing? Is it any more than just "buy this here, take it there?"

EDIT: Yes, reading description and watching video a few more times, yes, it seems that way.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 26, 2014, 01:05:43 AM
Yeah, it's just a "broad strokes" overview of trading. Not so useful at the moment with the small number of systems available to us, but potentially much more useful when the full galactic map opens up.

Also, regarding the paint jobs for ships:
Quote
On 29th July you will be able to buy any (or all) of a selection of paint jobs from the Elite: Dangerous online store.
Which is a shame, but not unexpected.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 26, 2014, 01:24:56 AM
Ouch - cash shop for beta?  :oh_i_see:  Where did that come from?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 26, 2014, 06:48:13 AM
They've been keeping an eye on Cris Roberts, clearly.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 26, 2014, 06:50:48 AM
I was more meaning the quote - haven't seen a new newsletter saying that and on the YouTube video advertising the camo paint job for the Eagle, it just says "will be available for you to buy in E:D Beta 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-EuRGsj28g&list=UUd1Xmm1TFBD-lfZUWaWf7EA&index=1)".

Never mind - latest newsletter has details (http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=c5e7202cb7).

Also, Lakon 6:

(http://elite.frontier.co.uk/extra/newsletter_2014_07_25/type6.jpg)

and "gratuitous" 4k, 8k and 16k screenshots which I'm not linking to.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 26, 2014, 08:04:46 AM
Ah sorry, yeah, Newsletter 33. I'm kind of indifferent to the Lakon designs - although they're interesting in that they show how the iconic letterbox space station docking bay entrance is going to limit ship designs in E:D.

Also, and please let me know if my spamming these links is getting irksome, but here's a couple of Witchspace Diaries Minisodes we've recorded. You'll be overjoyed to hear that I have a new microphone now. :awesome_for_real:

http://youtu.be/HR1-NdOD_UU (http://youtu.be/HR1-NdOD_UU) - Minisode 1, Mike demonstrates professional station exit techniques.

http://youtu.be/4L6iqiz_Bq0 (http://youtu.be/4L6iqiz_Bq0) - Minisode 2, I test my new mic and play with flight assist.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: palmer_eldritch on July 28, 2014, 02:23:16 PM
I'm only playing the single player missions at the moment but I'm finding this really hard. Do I need to buy a joystick or am I just bad at video games?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 28, 2014, 02:31:13 PM
It is hard, but I cannot imagine playing it without a joystick. I've seen some discussion on the forums from kb+m users and the general consensus is "get a stick".


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 28, 2014, 03:51:27 PM
I'm only playing the single player missions at the moment but I'm finding this really hard. Do I need to buy a joystick or am I just bad at video games?

How hard? As in, did you manage to unlock them all or are you struggling with one in particular?

From reading the forums, they've apparently improved the AI and increased the shield and hull values since Alpha as well so watching old videos of people breezing through them is both demoralizing and not relevant to the current build. Which is encouraging because I've found them tricky too and while I want to say it's because of my not very good joystick, I'm quite prepared to accept that I'm just not that good at this game. Yet.

A joystick discussion would be good tbh - as much as I've always wanted a Saitek X62, it's a little pricey still.  But there is a £30-£40 Thrustmaster HOTAS (T-flight HOTAS x?) which some people say is perfectly fine.  (My current one is a Saitek Cyborg Evo which is getting old these days).



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 28, 2014, 04:07:15 PM
One thing's for sure if you ask me: aiming with the normal pulse lasers is harder than everyone is prepared for. That's why, if you look at all the videos around, everyone is using fucking gimballed weapons. As much as I suck at this, I really hate the concept of autoaiming weapons. Bleah.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on July 28, 2014, 04:27:14 PM
Just because Luke turned off his targeting computer doesn't mean you have to.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 28, 2014, 04:48:04 PM
Real Jedi fly without Flight Assist.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 29, 2014, 01:10:28 AM
Witchspace Diaries Episode 3 (http://youtu.be/FB-LOxUm1-o) is online!

In a bit of a hurry, will contribute to the joystick etc discussion later :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 29, 2014, 05:07:54 AM
Huge patch is today! Hope they put in missions.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 29, 2014, 05:54:54 AM
Witchspace Diaries Episode 3 (http://youtu.be/FB-LOxUm1-o) is online!

You guys do make me laugh - good work!

Must choose a Commander Name - down to a choice of 3 and a half.  :uhrr:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 29, 2014, 07:36:41 AM
Thanks Drac :)  We do have fun recording them! Sorry for the extended period of me just sitting in the station, we were supposed to be seeing Mike's pov but he messed up his XSplit.

Servers seem to be down right now... hopefully patching is underway! Sooo looking forward to the social tools. Please anyone feel free to friend me up, Commander Apocrypha.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 29, 2014, 07:38:15 AM
Challenge accepted!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 29, 2014, 02:09:03 PM
Live in an hour.

Quote
The Beta phase has now started with many significant additional features. There are now 55 star systems covering 38,000 cubic light year. Player to player communication by voice and text, friends management and matchmaking. Private group and online single player options. Fuel consumption and docking computers for safe star port landings. Plus an overview of trade route mapping and the beginnings of online mission systems.


Gigantic Patch notes. (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=28314)



Quote
New Content/Features

- Added Viper
- Added Imperial Fighter (AI only)
- Added Lakon Type 6
- Added text chat
- Added voice comms
- Added missions
- Added fuel consumption
- Expanded playable bubble to 21 ly radius (@50 systems)
- Add support for friends management
- Allow matchmaking through jump to specific island
- Supercruise supports multiplayer
- Add RandomEvents to the current interdiction functionality. Random locations will now be spawned in front of the player while in supercruise
- For new bounties & fines, adding a "Local Security Office" to the contacts menu
- Added server moderated bounties vouchers
- Docking computer added
- Added trade route visualisation to galaxy map
- Add system connections based on fuel to galaxy map
- Added new paintjobs
- Gas giant features dervived from stellar forge data
- Chaff launcher stops scans and confuses tracking weapons but doesn't effect missiles
- Added new station variants
- Updated trade commodities
- Smuggler AI behaviours added
- Art updates for Orbis station
- Latest audio updates and balance pass
- Hauler art tweaks/updates
- Added new pilot animations
- Large Plasma Accelerator added
- Eagle art updates
- Added 'rich' station interior variant
- Added support for much larger accessible bubbles
- Fix up the last of the unsafe GOH use in ShipComponents
- Updated Sidewinder ship art
- Added beacons and associated traffic

Cont...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: palmer_eldritch on July 29, 2014, 02:41:37 PM
I'm only playing the single player missions at the moment but I'm finding this really hard. Do I need to buy a joystick or am I just bad at video games?

How hard? As in, did you manage to unlock them all or are you struggling with one in particular?

From reading the forums, they've apparently improved the AI and increased the shield and hull values since Alpha as well so watching old videos of people breezing through them is both demoralizing and not relevant to the current build. Which is encouraging because I've found them tricky too and while I want to say it's because of my not very good joystick, I'm quite prepared to accept that I'm just not that good at this game. Yet.

A joystick discussion would be good tbh - as much as I've always wanted a Saitek X62, it's a little pricey still.  But there is a £30-£40 Thrustmaster HOTAS (T-flight HOTAS x?) which some people say is perfectly fine.  (My current one is a Saitek Cyborg Evo which is getting old these days).



I couldn't get past the third single player mission, even with a joystick. So I suspect it may just be me. Despite that, I'm now patching up for the full beta!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 29, 2014, 03:17:49 PM
I couldn't get past the third single player mission, even with a joystick. So I suspect it may just be me. Despite that, I'm now patching up for the full beta!

You may (or may not!) be glad to hear that they've updated the missions a little.  The NPC ships are now a lot easier than they were and that third mission (which was an absolute bastard so you're not alone!) is far simpler to kill now - I think I even managed to take its shields down on the first pass. In fact, the Recon Wing mission (which had 4 ships iirc but now has 3) was easier too.  The Supply Run mission has a Lakon 9 instead of an Anaconda and again, much easier and quicker to kill.

What seems to be more balanced now is that their shields will recharge irrespective of whether you hit them or not (but don't know if that's by design or by accident).

I will confess to being a little disappointed that they removed some of the challenge - but as tutorial missions go, they're now far more reasonable and accessible imo. Also, it does make me feel like I might stand a chance at combat against NPCs in the game now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 29, 2014, 03:19:39 PM
In the meantime, servers are being hammered and online isn't really accessible. Nothing serious, it's beta, and LOTS of new players got in today, still it sucks cause I want to try the new stuff.

EDIT: I got in. The amount of improvements is too high to count. There's a lot of new stuff and for the first time since 1994 I felt like I was traveling across space to reach a distant destination and sell my cargo, hoping not to be interdicted and blown off in the process. And I have to admit that so far the implementation of fuel contributes a lot to the whole idea of space traveling. The mission system is very basic so far but it was needed and adds a lot of flavour. And things to do. The 45 new systems suddenly make the universe huge. And the little new details here and there are just wonderful. One the one thing I didn't think it could be improved just got better: sound. This could be the game with the best sound FX I can think of. Turn off the music, pur on your headphones, and start flying around. The bass vibrations kickin in when you get into supercruise or the crackling noise when you get out of hyperspace, or the sound of the positional thrusters when your main thruster is off and you are just turning around, or the hardpoints being deployed... this sound engineer/artitsts are godlike.



(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Mission.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 29, 2014, 11:18:32 PM
Didn't manage to get on last night, so I've had a scant 20 mins this morning.

Graphics are very nicely smartened up, textures, especially on planets, look higher res, anti-aliasing seems tweaked, framerate is greatly improved for me at least. Much, much smoother, looks and sounds stunning now.

There are a lot more players and they seem to have raised the numbers visible in one location. Stations are busier now, I've been rammed a couple of times entering/exiting stations!

Missions feel a bit clunky atm. Trading missions are very annoying in that you have to return to the system where you picked the mission up to collect payment, which makes them slow and the payout low for the time. I'm hoping that gets tweaked.

I've had a problem with mouse input in station services too, eg. Commodity Market, Outfitting, etc. The menus don't seem to respond to the mousewheel and clicking is really flaky. I'll bug report it when I have time.

Looking forward to playing a lot more when I have time later on today :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 30, 2014, 01:44:17 AM
I hit you up with a friend request Apoc , Commander Tankin.  Don't currently have voice comms though.





Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 30, 2014, 01:48:20 AM
I am Commander Lefteye Falconeer. We should all be friends.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 30, 2014, 04:08:07 AM
Added both of you :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 30, 2014, 06:32:14 AM
New trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx9io7bFR64)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 30, 2014, 06:36:00 AM
I'm not sure about the Viper.  At all.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 30, 2014, 09:05:01 AM
In what way?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on July 30, 2014, 09:13:25 AM
Add me! Commander Lucas Konrad


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 30, 2014, 12:08:26 PM
Added :)  Game is having some major server issues atm, all kinds of nope.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on July 30, 2014, 01:11:51 PM
Find lots of bugs and slow this thing down a couple of months. I don't have time to play it right now but it sounds like it will be fun as hell.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 30, 2014, 01:18:23 PM
It'll be out in 6 months, so no hurry.

The bad news is, at the moment the game basically is like UO but with Trammel & Felucca. Except Trammel is empty because their version of Felucca is the online server, and their version of Trammel is the solo-or-party-of-friends coop servers. And what you get in solo/coop can be then brought to Felucca (shared universe).

 :awesome_for_real: :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on July 31, 2014, 10:41:40 PM
Witchspace Diaries Episode 4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ3_tM-yOVs) - Space Toilets! Bit of a rundown of the new features in Beta-1, and we had a play with the grouping system and stuff :)

Trading income seems tweaked high atm, I'm in a Lakon Type-6 already. Which is a very nice trader, 100 ton capacity and decent range, can reach almost all of the currently available systems in 1 jump. Steers like a brick though!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 01, 2014, 01:15:54 AM
In what way?

In the way that it doesn't really resemble a Viper at all.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 01, 2014, 02:29:40 AM
I don't know man, it looks pretty identical to the original to me   :awesome_for_real:



(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Viper.png)

Source:  :heart:  http://imgur.com/a/C95sv (http://imgur.com/a/C95sv)  :heart:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 01, 2014, 02:33:27 AM
Frypic.jpg


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 01, 2014, 02:57:04 AM
To those who are playing and are smarter than me:

Is there a way to use the Galaxy Map "Navigation" tab to actually plot a route and figure out how to get to a specific system?
I can see the "from -- to" fields but it's not like you get any result by putting two systems in it.

What I would like to know is for the navigational system to give me an idea of what jumps should I make to get to some place, so I can read if my ship has the jumping capabilities to do so, or not. Is this not yet in, or am I missing something?

Another question: is there a way to find out if a specific system has a star base or not? I made the jump to one area and there was no base there so I risked being stranded without any fuel. I like the idea that we have to buy information eventually, but you would think starbases existence would be known on any starmap (unless they are illegal or something). So again, am I missing something or at the moment you can't really tell if a system has life and services or it is completely barren?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 01, 2014, 03:33:50 AM
Lovely Mike Evans aggressively explaining why (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showpost.php?p=609596&postcount=130) Elite Dangerous flight model works the way it works.  :heart:

Quote
I don't give a damn what all the other space games have done in the past, nor do I care that our yaw rates are apparently even slower than a plane's is.

Fast yaw and pitch in a space game is a video game trope of the highest order along with banner arrows sliding around the screen and compasses telling you where to fly all the time. I'm almost certain that other developers just implement those features because they've been so prevalent rather than actually reassessing whether the game needed them or could be even better without them!

(...)

Suffice to say we wanted Elite to feel like star wars in terms of how the ships move by banking/rolling and pitching through manoeuvres opposed to the yaw and pitch based FPS style movement most other space games offered (where roll plays little or no part).

(...)

Finally realism has played no part whatsoever in any of our design discussions about the flight model. We don't care what would be realistic as we only care what the game play experience is when flying these ships and so far we feel we're hitting the right notes for the majority of our audience.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 01, 2014, 03:37:16 AM
In fairness, Frontier got utterly humped for putting in realism.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on August 01, 2014, 03:39:18 AM
I don't know man, it looks pretty identical to the original to me   :awesome_for_real:

On my slow-ass old rig it will probably look more like the right pic anyway  :awesome_for_real:

So my rig is not slow, I'm just having the retro experience.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on August 01, 2014, 03:56:59 AM
If you want realism in your space flight sims then you probably would not fly a Cobra MK III through half the galaxy but instead spend the game sitting inside a tiny cramped Soyus capsule for half a day waiting for your docking maneuver with the ISS to complete.

Or spend weeks to get through a series of complex breaking maneuvers to get from quasi-relativistic speeds down to a velocity that allows you to dock and doesn't lead to you and the station get completely obliterated. Accelerating to even 10% c with only a few g of thrust (so that the squishy creamy center inside the ship doesn't get crushed to death by g-forces) would take months.

The people who claim lack of 'realism' in such games are the worst kind. Because it's always somehow perfectly acceptable as far as 'realism' goes when those games have artificial gravity that reacts to g-forces in femtoseconds, miles of visibility in pitch black space and ships made from materials that can sustain flight maneuvers at > 50g. Yet somehow argue over whether something else is 'realistic enough'


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 01, 2014, 04:15:46 AM
To those who are playing and are smarter than me:

Is there a way to use the Galaxy Map "Navigation" tab to actually plot a route and figure out how to get to a specific system?
I can see the "from -- to" fields but it's not like you get any result by putting two systems in it.

What I would like to know is for the navigational system to give me an idea of what jumps should I make to get to some place, so I can read if my ship has the jumping capabilities to do so, or not. Is this not yet in, or am I missing something?

Unfortunately not that I can figure out. I agree that those From & To fields make me think it should be there, so I'm guessing it's just not implemented yet. On a similar note the galaxy map's estimates of where you can jump to aren't always 100% accurate. Beware!

Another question: is there a way to find out if a specific system has a star base or not? I made the jump to one area and there was no base there so I risked being stranded without any fuel. I like the idea that we have to buy information eventually, but you would think starbases existence would be known on any starmap (unless they are illegal or something). So again, am I missing something or at the moment you can't really tell if a system has life and services or it is completely barren?

Yeah I think the "Navigation Markers" option has different indicators for populated/starbase systems and empty ones... but I've never yet found an empty system so I can't confirm that! I was thinking of doing a WSD minisode later looking specifically at the galaxy map so I'll have a play & do some research first and see if I can work it out for sure :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 01, 2014, 04:16:26 AM
In what way?

In the way that it doesn't really resemble a Viper at all.


Yeah it should be pointier, agree.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 01, 2014, 08:27:15 AM
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20mission%20culling.png)



 :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 01, 2014, 10:17:23 AM
And how does one do that ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pagz on August 01, 2014, 10:39:28 AM
(https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/5198777088/h80E5A0F4/)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 01, 2014, 10:41:54 AM
You have to kill three civilian ships. The problem is that I couldn't find them and couldn't figure out how to find them. Maybe you can kill ANY civilian ship, but it looked like in those areas I can only find them close to a station, and that's a huge no-no.

One of the best parts though is the kind of "life" that is going on around stations. Lots of ships docking and taking off, and they are all named, and it almost feels like they are players (except they are not) and you can almost make up stories for them, as some are clean but some are wanted. I don't know, "space life" feels quite right so far.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 01, 2014, 01:46:30 PM
One of the problems with the game at the moment is that you're restricted to only one ship at a time. So, if you do what I did and buy a trading ship (Lakon Type-6), you're kind of stuck hauling unless you either make enough money to upgrade to the next combat ship up (for me it'll be an Anaconda) or are prepared to lose a fuckton of credits downgrading back to the previous tier combat ship. Meh, beta problems, won't be an issue once the multi-ship ownership systems are in place.

Anyway, made a quick vid earlier looking at the galaxy map, aimed at new players really. It's here: http://youtu.be/mV6R8E01KAs (http://youtu.be/mV6R8E01KAs). Falc, I still can't find any way to identify station-less systems from the map.

Also I haven't yet seen anyone out of all of you who've friended me up online! I've made a private group, feel free to request an invite to that if you want, although I'm sticking with Open play for now mostly :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Simond on August 02, 2014, 09:19:53 AM
It never saved any time when I was a lad, mate.  There was non of this 'instant docking' shite.  You switched on the computer and it did it for you, but BY FUCK you WILL watch it dock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ah3bZFTRo


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 02, 2014, 11:21:17 AM
Blue Danube included  :awesome_for_real:

That's really classy, and such a nice gift to the fans.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on August 02, 2014, 11:39:47 AM
So pretty.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on August 02, 2014, 02:54:36 PM
Caved and bought the beta and you can notice that it is still very much a beta.

ED unfortunately reminds me very clearly why I absolutely despise PC gaming. Through no fault of ED. It's been two hours since I've downloaded the beta and I'm already at the point where I want to cockpunch the people at NVidia for providing such crappy drivers, crappy experiences and for being even worse than ATI.

I've also learned that MS doesn't really support its own controllers (play and charge? More like just charge) that NVidia filters and interpolates all non-native resolutions even if that isn't necessary (ever heard of pixel doubling?)and manages to do that so that it looks blurry and disgusting and so on.

So right now I'm still wrestling with my Windows 8 install, crappy NVidia SW and haven't yet found a controller in my house that works and I'm done for the day.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 03, 2014, 01:30:40 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ah3bZFTRo

You see all the debris in the station? Proof of how skilled the AI is at docking  :wink:

I did give the docking computer a try and it's just too slow and too unreliable for me at the moment. Plus I usually fuck up *un*docking rather than docking!  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 03, 2014, 11:34:06 AM
Beware, lots of griefing/station ganking going on today. Not piracy, no demands, just opening fire on people as they leave stations. They get annihilated by the station defences shortly after so they're not getting anything out of it except fun, but it's been frequent enough for me to move to a private group game instead of open play :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on August 03, 2014, 11:19:32 PM
For me its solo all the way. I don't even feel any shame. I screw myself over hard enough without having to worry about some griefer fucking over my limited play time.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 04, 2014, 01:07:02 AM
To those who are playing and are smarter than me:

Is there a way to use the Galaxy Map "Navigation" tab to actually plot a route and figure out how to get to a specific system?
I can see the "from -- to" fields but it's not like you get any result by putting two systems in it.

What I would like to know is for the navigational system to give me an idea of what jumps should I make to get to some place, so I can read if my ship has the jumping capabilities to do so, or not. Is this not yet in, or am I missing something?

Unfortunately not that I can figure out. I agree that those From & To fields make me think it should be there, so I'm guessing it's just not implemented yet. On a similar note the galaxy map's estimates of where you can jump to aren't always 100% accurate. Beware!

Another question: is there a way to find out if a specific system has a star base or not? I made the jump to one area and there was no base there so I risked being stranded without any fuel. I like the idea that we have to buy information eventually, but you would think starbases existence would be known on any starmap (unless they are illegal or something). So again, am I missing something or at the moment you can't really tell if a system has life and services or it is completely barren?

Yeah I think the "Navigation Markers" option has different indicators for populated/starbase systems and empty ones... but I've never yet found an empty system so I can't confirm that! I was thinking of doing a WSD minisode later looking specifically at the galaxy map so I'll have a play & do some research first and see if I can work it out for sure :)

I've only played a little bit with the navigation view and I don't think it currently calculates a route for you, just shows alll possible jumps are possible between the From & To locations and shows which are possible with a full cargo hold or user-specified load. But I got the impression last night that it won't tell you if it isn't actually possible to get to a location in your current ship (so you might have a network of jumps possible around your destination and a network of jumps around your origin but are missing a jump that links the two networks, if you get what I mean.)

Still not sure about trade routes either in that I don't get what they're meant to be showing.  Buying HE Suits in Aulin and selling in I Bootis is perfectly viable making 100+cr per unit but it doesn't show this on the trade routes - I only inferred it from seeing from routes that were displayed.

As far as showing stations and system details, I gather that it will be possible to see more detail about systems at some point - there was certainly art showing those type of screens (mockups) a while ago so hopefully they'll get implemented at some point.

(http://www.elitedangerous.com/images/misc/starsystems/ERANIN.jpg) (http://www.elitedangerous.com/images/misc/starsystems/ERANIN.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 04, 2014, 01:15:56 AM
The trade routes are a general indication but as they said prices are dynamic so they can be out of date or only report the biggest and better deals. The trick to use them is to use the filters and weed out all the pretty colouurs that you don't actually need. It's much better once you focus it on just a few trade goods.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 04, 2014, 01:32:30 AM
I get that prices are dynamic but I think what I'm asking in a round about way is whether the map is showing trade activity or supply and demand? Because if it's the former then I'd be surprised that no-one was doing a lucrative trade run between neighbouring systems and if it's the latter than it's either not working as intended (or as I'd expect), not updating quickly or selective in what it displays (bearing in mind that it shows trades in HE Suits from Aulin to other systems and from other systems to I Bootis but not between the two.)












Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 04, 2014, 02:59:09 AM
I'm not sure what the trade routes on the map are showing but I know that it's often inaccurate. It's also really hard to see exactly where you can jump to, especially once you get into longer range ships, and often hard to find systems without having to manually type their names into the search box.

The galaxy map in particular needs a lot of reworking to make it more usable IMO. The best way to trade reliably I've found is using external tools:

Trading Query (http://www.elitetradingtool.co.uk/) - simple & fast, very reliable.
Slopey's BPC (http://www.oisltest.com/DM/BPC/) - more complex, can be slow, can be buggy & flaky.

Once you find yourself a decent round trip trade route stick with it until it's bled dry I say. I'm currently running Terrain Enrichment Systems from Aulin to Wyrd and Gallite or Tea on the return journey, depending on prices, netting around 600k per round trip in a Lakon Type-9.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on August 04, 2014, 03:57:19 AM
As it stands I might not be able to play Elite on my computer. At least not without a severe impact on picture quality.  :sad:

I can't run it at the native resolution of my Maxbook Pro Retina (2880x1800) because it'll probably burn through my desk and melt right through to the center of the earth. Also the NVidia GT650M is simply not beefy enough to ensure the game is playable even at 'LOW' settings.

Running it at half the horizontal and vertical resolution (1440x900) would yield the best results because 1 pixel at native res maps to 4 pixels at the lower res and so you shouldn't get any picture degradation due to scaling and filtering artifacts. Simple pixel doubling would be sufficient. Unfortunately for me the NVidia windows driver doesn't support 1440x900 out of the box and if I configure it as a custom resolution then the driver will always interpolate and filter even though it isn't necessary. You also can't deactivate or change the filtering because it is hardwired into the driver.

The NVidia MacOS driver for the same card supports all of that and I generally play every Mac game at 1440x900 so I don't really understand why the Windows driver can't do the things the Mac driver can and does.

Setting the game to any other resolution simply looks shitty due to all the scaling and filtering artefacts and the pixel mismatch.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 04, 2014, 04:28:17 AM
Trading Query (http://www.elitetradingtool.co.uk/) - simple & fast, very reliable.
Slopey's BPC (http://www.oisltest.com/DM/BPC/) - more complex, can be slow, can be buggy & flaky.

Cheers for the links - have been looking at Slopey's tool (fnaar!) a bit and will check out the other.  Also, your map minisode was very useful as it pointed out some basic things that I'd entirely missed (like the economy colours matching the commodity colours. Duh!)  One bit of feedback I have got for you is that I feel you should wear a black t-shirt or turtleneck in future minisodes.

(http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/features/analysis/artificial-intelligence/artificial_intelligence_3.jpg)

 :why_so_serious:

Been away for a few days but hoping to get some time to play properly.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on August 04, 2014, 06:07:46 AM
The trading query tool is not accurate, it relies on manual input by other players and recently they have been trying to tank accurate prices.  Slopey's tool is what I use, it has come along way, and is much more accurate (not the web client).  The windows app has a scrapper that populates data as people check the market, and yesterday Slopey was in his chat while getting player feedback and making tweaks for his most recent release.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 04, 2014, 06:57:23 AM
One bit of feedback I have got for you is that I feel you should wear a black t-shirt or turtleneck in future minisodes.

Lol :P  I'm gonna give that a go ;)

The trading query tool is not accurate, it relies on manual input by other players and recently they have been trying to tank accurate prices.  Slopey's tool is what I use, it has come along way, and is much more accurate (not the web client).  The windows app has a scrapper that populates data as people check the market, and yesterday Slopey was in his chat while getting player feedback and making tweaks for his most recent release.

Ah I didn't know people were fucking with the trading query data, that's sad. I had read someone suggesting that there may have been some deliberate poisoning of the data in Slopey's by people editing their local data, but it was only one passing comment.

I've started using the windows app for Slopey's too (link here (http://www.slopey.com/ED/BPC.exe)) and it seems pretty accurate. Does occasionally crash the E:D client though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 04, 2014, 07:54:37 AM
TIL that the constellation of Bootes is a neighbour of Ursa Major which is very visible in the night sky on a clear night at this time of year (in the Northern hemisphere at any rate).

(http://i.imgur.com/VZ4g4rJ.gif)

If you look at the handle of the plough and go up and left, you can see Theta Bootis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theta_Bo%C3%B6tis) (θ Boo) which also happens to be called Asellus Primus. I think the smaller of the two stars just below and to the right of it is I Bootis.

/sadgeek



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 04, 2014, 09:49:23 AM
 :thumbs_up:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 04, 2014, 10:31:55 AM
So, tonight me and a bunch of friends are going to try and put up some real PvP pirating action (none of that shooting in front of stations crap). The way I see it this has the potential for a lot of Ultima Online kind of meanness, even more so now with the addition of vocal communication, so we are going out looking for trouble. Being beta we expect to have lots of problems, including crashes and the good old inability to find each other, but I'm interested in seeing what kind of room for open PvP is there, considering everyone seems to be moving to the "solo" instance as soon as they get in trouble. Not to mention the fact that there isn't anything yet able to prevent a ship from warping away I think. Will report with our findings.

EDIT: The experience was a total failure. The newest patch made the universe bigger, and that means finding other players is almost impossible. Including your friends. The system is supposed to put friends in the same instance at all times, but clearly it needs fixing. We kept finding each other only to be separated for the next 30 minutes. And we couldn't find any other player to fight, not even at the "Federal distress signal" which has been the unofficial arena for a while now. Basically, between a larger universe, a few bugs, and people hiding in "solo" mode to avoid PvP, it's safe to say there's less player interacton now than there was a beta phase ago. Hope it'll improve somehow in the next stages.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 05, 2014, 04:07:28 AM
Well, I have to say I'm not entirely surprised by that.

Anyone wanting to do some trading to make money to buy bigger ships has no reason at all to expose themselves to the risk of being shot by "pirates", especially when the trading model means you're regularly ferrying pretty much your entire worth around in uninsurable cargo, and when there is no way at all to protect yourself from said "piracy".

If there were any way of fitting cargo ships out to make them more survivable and if there was some reason other than the deliberate increase in risk for the thrills to being in Open rather than Private/Solo then maybe.

Someone predicted earlier in the thread that Open would become simply full of PvP wolves and everyone else would stay away, and I think that's entirely accurate.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 05, 2014, 08:08:25 AM
Beta is beta:

Got myself into an Anaconda, fitted it out, total cost roughly 5 million. Headed out to the Federal Distress Signal to test it out, arrived, shot a few things, got rammed by a tiny NPC fighter and exploded instantly from full shields & hull. LOL I thought, hey ho... but wait, no insurance option. Free Sidewinder my only choice, despite having over 6 million credits.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on August 05, 2014, 10:28:02 AM
You either have to have a risk commensurate with the reward to tempt non-pirates into spaces or places that pirates could find them or you have to have such a constrained topography that it's inevitable that non-pirates have to run a gauntlet at some point in transit.

If you do the latter, you have to flip it: the pirates have to be running some kind of risk at every point along that constrained transportation topography, or everyone will just pirate.

If a designer can get this balance right, it's a lot of fun and creates a delicious sense of tension. But so far almost no one has, in any multiplayer game context.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 05, 2014, 10:50:24 AM
I have almost no doubt that what you're describing is not going to happen in E:D. Instead I'm fairly certain that the pirates and non-pirates will be forever separated and that the pirates will find that it's not the game for them. Simply judging by the repeated results of polls & discussions on the official forums I'd guess that's about 10-15% of people currently playing, tops. The PVP'ers are very vocal, but they're in a clear minority at the moment.

I think that will, in the long run, put more pressure on the devs to make combat vs NPCs more varied and interesting and to get the balance there right.

I personally think that trying to mix PVP and PVE in the same game, more often than not, damages both. The PVP in WOW is sterile and just another kind of grind, the PVE in EVE is tedious and exists solely to fund the PVP. Separate the two, let both shine.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on August 05, 2014, 10:57:18 AM
I have almost no doubt that what you're describing is not going to happen in E:D. Instead I'm fairly certain that the pirates and non-pirates will be forever separated and that the pirates will find that it's not the game for them. Simply judging by the repeated results of polls & discussions on the official forums I'd guess that's about 10-15% of people currently playing, tops. The PVP'ers are very vocal, but they're in a clear minority at the moment.

I think that will, in the long run, put more pressure on the devs to make combat vs NPCs more varied and interesting and to get the balance there right.

I personally think that trying to mix PVP and PVE in the same game, more often than not, damages both. The PVP in WOW is sterile and just another kind of grind, the PVE in EVE is tedious and exists solely to fund the PVP. Separate the two, let both shine.

If you search out the videos and interviews, Braben hasn't even been remotely shy about saying that Frontier is not even remotely interested in rewarding PVP or pushing that angle. They put multi-player in so people can work cooperatively with each other.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 05, 2014, 12:19:53 PM
Indeed. Which is why I find it so funny/infuriating to see the PVPers setting the forums alight over and over again these last few weeks.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 05, 2014, 01:49:23 PM
Along with "Playing solo is so unfair because it lets people level until they get to endgame before joining MP again."


 :facepalm:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 05, 2014, 03:33:41 PM
If a designer can get this balance right, it's a lot of fun and creates a delicious sense of tension. But so far almost no one has, in any multiplayer game context.

EVE does it quite right to me. Or it did. Anyway, that would be great. The problem is, they don't want to go that way. They want people to play Elite co-op, and PvP seems to be just an after thought considering how easy it is to avoid it.


I personally think that trying to mix PVP and PVE in the same game, more often than not, damages both. The PVP in WOW is sterile and just another kind of grind, the PVE in EVE is tedious and exists solely to fund the PVP. Separate the two, let both shine.

Again, the frame of reference here is EVE (which works great), not WoW.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on August 05, 2014, 06:35:02 PM
The official forums are just so much facepalm. It's like those people never read a single interview or watched a single video. They all want some insanely grindtastic piece of shit. Don't they realize that it isn't intending to be some competition open world thing where their personal progress will even matter to other people? It blows my mind how people just gloss over what has been said by the developers in favor of their own personal idea of what it should be.

Ever other thread is pvp interested people whining about trading making too much money and that it should be nerfed when there isn't even a fraction of the combat content in that Frontier said they had plans for. Sometimes I really hate other gamers.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 05, 2014, 10:55:03 PM
Again, the frame of reference here is EVE (which works great), not WoW.

Yeah, I was just using those two as markers of the two extremes :)  I would disagree about EVE getting it right because the PVE is terrible, but that's just my subjective view.

I did some hunting around regarding the insurance bug I experienced yesterday and it appears that it's a known and common bug and seems to affect anything Hauler/Cobra sized and up. So I'd advise anyone flying anything that size to be very cautious and prepared to be back in a Sidewinder with no compensation if you do get exploded in any way.

I'm currently giving the Viper a try. Great fun in combat, cripplingly short jump range.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 06, 2014, 01:40:23 AM
Just to clarify:

I fell in love for Elite when I was 10, in 1984, even though I didn't have a machine to run it just by reading about it on magazines. I started playing it the next year, and I kept dying without a single clue about what to do to stay alive. Somehow I managed to endure the pain and I survived long enough to get to Elite 2, by the time I was 17, and consider that one of the most inspiring videogame experience of my growing up phase. There was no PvP back then and of course I didn't care about it. This is to say that I can absolutely love Elite Dangerous even without a single drop of PvP. More: I'd love it to death even without multiplayer. This is by all means Elite 4 and it looks and play fantastic, so all in all we could even do without multiplayer, be it PvP or Co-op.

But at the same time, let's not pretend that they didn't pitch the game as if it had a PvP element. They never said "STRONG PvP element" but they also never said "Bare minimum PvP element". They certainly expressed many time how anyone could avoid PvP if they wanted to, but at the time it wasn't exactly clear that people could jump in and out of the "Online (shared)" universe whenever they felt like it. As I said, this is Trammel and Felucca all over again, except so damn huge that the few left in Felucca will probably never be able to find each other. Seriously, immense scale is immense.

To me, it made perfect sense that they allowed everyone to play solo if they wanted, or to play grouped with friends in a co-op persistent galaxy if they prefferred it this way. But what I always wrongly assumed (my bad) was that they were going to lock you (or at least one of your "characters", before I found out that there are no characters, just one Commander) in the game mode you chose. If you started a solo career, that character would be bound to a solo career. If you formed a group, those characters would be bound to that "grouped" instance. And if you chose to go with the "All Group (shared persistent online)" then you would be playing there until you started a new character or played your others chars in the solo or grouped mode.

I understand you people don't see the issue, mostly because you don't give one or two fucks about PvP. As I said, I can do without PvP in this game. Hell, it's really a lot like Euro Truck Simulator in space, and I am lucky because I LOVE Euro Truck Simulator. AND I love the original Elite without multiplayer to death. But I also love other kind of games and I feel this is a wasted opportunity to use this whole beautiful sandbox they are making as a foundation for something else too. This won't ever be like EVE for a lot of good reasons, but sure EVE made a lot of things right when it comes to PvP, taking them out of the Ultima Online and Shadowbane books and refining them, and to think that Elite Dangerous could have tried _a bit_ of that without hassling anyone (due to the alternate game modes) and further improve them, and instead they seem to be headed in a direction that will simply make PvP pretty much non-existent (due to sheer size, game modes, and qustionable risk/rewards), is in my opinion a waste of a fantastic dogfighting model.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 06, 2014, 02:46:47 AM
But they aren't stopping all PVP. You just won't be able to easily inflict PVP on people who don't want to partake.

Why not organise a PVP private group on the official forums? Post there saying you've created a private group under your pilot name and anyone who wants to fly in a group where PVP can happen and will be encouraged or expected can sign up to it and you'll accept all join requests.

I've not seen anyone actually trying to make PVP happen in a way that doesn't try to force non-PVPers to be vitims, the tools are there, give it a go!

I know you, Falc, are not the kind of PVPer who just wants to gank noobs, but I'll wager that there's plenty of the very vocal PVP advocates on the forums who do want exactly that and who simply aren't interested in consensual PVP with participants who are expecting it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on August 06, 2014, 06:16:35 AM
If they bother with trying to make concessions for the wolves I won't ever even bother with online.  I will go from trying to pvp occasionally to forgetting it exists.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 06, 2014, 06:28:27 AM
By calling all players interested in open world PvP wolves and/or sheep you are erasing all the players like me. That doesn't offend me, but makes you wrong.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on August 06, 2014, 07:04:27 AM
The official forums are just so much facepalm. It's like those people never read a single interview or watched a single video. They all want some insanely grindtastic piece of shit. Don't they realize that it isn't intending to be some competition open world thing where their personal progress will even matter to other people? It blows my mind how people just gloss over what has been said by the developers in favor of their own personal idea of what it should be.

Ever other thread is pvp interested people whining about trading making too much money and that it should be nerfed when there isn't even a fraction of the combat content in that Frontier said they had plans for. Sometimes I really hate other gamers.

There's a set of gamers who game a lot, usually with a very narrow band of games, who really are like experimental animals who've learned to press several buttons in sequence in order to get a tasty bit of cheese. Having learned it, they want everything in the world to be another buttons-in-sequence treat-dispenser. They don't even know they're lab rats who've been completely conditioned.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on August 06, 2014, 07:19:33 AM
On PvP, the immensity and openness of Elite strikes me as one of its defining attributes, one of the things that made it legendary.

So if you think about it against the backdrop of science-fiction stories about equally immense universes, what is it fuels actual conflict in those stories? In a vaguely hard-SF though w/FTL and pew-pew laser ships setting, in theory, ships could just completely bypass each other. Star Trek nonsense aside, you can't blockade a three-dimensional space that's several light years along each axis, not with a trillion ships.  The only reason people every have to crowd into the same volume and potentially pew-pew each other in a setting like that is if there is a destination (planet, space station) that everyone's trying to get to or if there's a valuable, finite resource located at a discrete point in space. Or if they decide they want to fight (which is a bit like real-life military conflicts on a terrestrial surface: at least some of them happen because two militaries decide to meet and fight).

Deciding to meet and fight is easy to model in any game: it's a PvP toggle or arena or what have you. It's the other two that are hard. I do think EVE has at least a design structure that offers some useful lessons in this respect: the problems with EVE are really in the gameplay on one hand and in the culture of the players on the other. If you make the places everyone has to go too full of risk, you have Dread Lord Days all over again, and you're also losing some of the captivating sense of immersive realism. No actual space station/trading fort/outpost etc. would just extend its security five feet beyond its walls and then let everyone get assaulted by pirates, because no one would ever come to the space station. If you have a trading city or outpost, you generally have a security cordon that extends out so far that by the time you're beyond its protection, the number of places you could be is so vast that no bandit can predict reliably where to wait to ambush every caravan or trader. If you make the resources people need too full of risk because they're too scarce and therefore too easy for bandits to just camp on, same thing.

There's a sweet spot where player antagonists add to the feeling of uncertainty in a big universe. If you know on any given voyage or any given adventure that there is a 1:1 probability of being attacked by players, then the game is just "Bully Simulator 3.0" and it doesn't even remotely capture the feeling of what it would be like to be a trader in a vast universe. If you know that there's never any risk at all, I think you're losing a bit of the spice that gaming can offer...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 06, 2014, 07:47:54 AM
By calling all players interested in open world PvP wolves and/or sheep you are erasing all the players like me. That doesn't offend me, but makes you wrong.

*cough*

I understand you people don't see the issue, mostly because you don't give one or two fucks about PvP.

Who's this "you people" kemosabe?

 :why_so_serious:

You're right though, I don't see the issue but that's because the people who are vehemently pro PVP and anti-switching haven't offered any good arguments against it. Even you Falc - you say EVE got a lot of things about PvP right but not what. Can you educate the likes of me who only dabbled in EVE a bit several years ago and got bored as to what's missing in Elite? 

(For the record, I will no doubt dabble in Open and I'm not shy about PvP no matter how terrible I am at it but I tend to prefer solo or co-op.)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 06, 2014, 08:12:41 AM
What I liked about EVE is that there are/were greater rewards to go mining and hunting into 0.0 zones. Risk vs. reward, as stated so many times. The way it is now in Elite (subject to changes since it's beta, of course) there's not a single reason at the moment to be on the shared-online server, regardless if you prefer PvP or PvE, because it's just too dangerous for everybody and doesn't offer anything else more than the offline one except for unexpected griefing deaths.

Personally, I'd love to have the dilemma about a specific mission or dangerous trade route considering I might be approached by other players because it's a low security system, as opposed to just having to deal with scripted enemies which, after a while, I know exactly how to beat or how to run away from.

And this even more so considering Elite is factionless and has nifty communication tools. Meaning, as DayZ taught us, there's room for more than just "Enemy player ---> kill". There's a lot of stories that can be told by players interacting with each other without artificial limitations on how they are supposed to behave. And while DayZ has NO rules at all, things could be enforced a bit more here through similar means to those used by EVE.

So again, I am not a wolf and I don't particularly love to be griefed, but when it comes to sandboxes and open worlds, I love that the world feels alive and open to lots of unexpected player interactions. That comes with dangers too. But if the system is geared in a way that pushes "legal" players to go play offline, and "chaotic evil" players to stay online, there is no wiggle rooms for those who enjoy a less black-and-white experience. I think they should just find better ways to blend the two gamestyles, WITHOUT taking away the right to just play offline/solo. And to that goal, they could just put some incentives to stay in the online-shared universe. That would be enough for me, even if it ended up not working.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on August 06, 2014, 08:33:27 AM
And I will not pay a dime for yet another game that cripples my opportunities if I refuse to subject myself to the depradations of wolves. I want exactly what Braben seems to be offering. A game where I can play the whole thing in    a pve/coop environment with no chance of getting ganked by somebody who gets a hard-on from the "thrill" of ruining someone else's day. I do NOT bemoan the fact that he may also give those who want unrestricted pvp a place to do that. If he can pull off both in one, more power to him!  But when a pvper whines that it's no fun for them that I can play the whole game, go anywhere, do anything, without ever being subject to their bullying, well, tough shit and good riddance.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 06, 2014, 09:52:00 AM
So again, I am not a wolf and I don't particularly love to be griefed, but when it comes to sandboxes and open worlds, I love that the world feels alive and open to lots of unexpected player interactions. That comes with dangers too. But if the system is geared in a way that pushes "legal" players to go play offline, and "chaotic evil" players to stay online, there is no wiggle rooms for those who enjoy a less black-and-white experience. I think they should just find better ways to blend the two gamestyles, WITHOUT taking away the right to just play offline/solo. And to that goal, they could just put some incentives to stay in the online-shared universe. That would be enough for me, even if it ended up not working.

Good reply and I totally understand what you're saying.

I'll be honest though and say I still don't think there's much of an issue though, especially as the devs have already stated two things: 1: they fully support player choice in the game, including psychopathic behaviour. 2: they may provide some incentive to players who stay in Open *all* the time but it's likely to be things like bragging rights like mentions on the newscasts. (Source (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showpost.php?p=147803&postcount=138))  It's a small thing but it doesn't provide any sort of in-game advantage and let's face it, penalizing some players because they prefer a particular style of play (solo, co-op) is hardly fair.  Some people are going to want to play Elite solo - not through fear of being griefed in MP but just because they're single player types who have never played an MMO or TF2 or any MP game.

On the other hand, rather than incentive, I think deterring the hardcore PvPers is also something to consider. I don't mean punishments per se (although it will be interesting to see how the player bounty system pans out) but I mean little things like filling in the empty squares and not showing CMDR before a player name. If all the blobs on your scanner look the same then it just makes it a little harder for those that are out to specifically target players while making life a little more exciting for everybody else. (Okay, you can probably tell that the Viper belonging to **Dum8led0r3** is likely to be a player but you know).  And if the crime and bounty systems do work as advertised and the AI enforcement is up to the job then that'll make a difference - it's just not in game yet.

I don't know. I just feel that it's all a bit of a storm in a tea-cup at the moment based on the fact that stories out of Premium Beta suggested it was a Griefa's Paradise and the fact that half the systems (game systems as well as solar systems!) aren't in place yet.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on August 06, 2014, 10:30:09 AM
Doesn't PvE get dull after you learn the basics? I can't play non-PvP games any more. Especially in something like Elite- it is perfect for both styles. I WANT to have that element of danger when I am running a trade mission or whatever. If I know exactly what will happen and how to handle it every time, why would I ever play?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Montague on August 06, 2014, 12:23:28 PM
Doesn't PvE get dull after you learn the basics? I can't play non-PvP games any more. Especially in something like Elite- it is perfect for both styles. I WANT to have that element of danger when I am running a trade mission or whatever. If I know exactly what will happen and how to handle it every time, why would I ever play?

Speaking purely for myself, when I play games like this it isn't so much for the challenge as for the escapism. Being ganked by a circle-strafing, jump-shooting catass shouting "KEKEKEKE NOOOB!!!1" puts a bit of damper on it. Also being married with a 1 year old kind of precludes being able to devote 100% attention to any game. Being able to fight and have a possibility of winning while being yelled at by my wife while holding my daughter is required for me to play at this point. That and fuck other people.  :drill:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: HaemishM on August 06, 2014, 12:37:14 PM
I've not seen anyone actually trying to make PVP happen in a way that doesn't try to force non-PVPers to be vitims

Forum vocal PVP'ers don't want non-PVP'ers to have the choice. Wolves need sheep.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 06, 2014, 01:10:04 PM
It's Elite though.  It demands PvP.  And the original game even had the setup that would make for easy PvP.  Every planet had a danger rating.  You went there, you got challenged by the shit AI.  Just make dangerous Star Systems PvP and give them WORTHWHILE trade routes as well and it would be a heaving hive of consensual fun.

I'm really not seeing the problem conceptually, but hey ho.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on August 06, 2014, 03:45:16 PM
But that's just Eve then. If you want good stuff you MUST risk PvP.  Not interested. And while the original Elite might have had structures that could easily be adapted to PvP, it obviously didn't DEMAND PvP, being single player and all! There is NOTHING that prevents them from implementing both the danger ratings like original Elite AND the Open/Shared/Solo switch as announced, except epeen wankery that wants to force the PvP on everyone whether they want it or not. I DO NOT WANT PvP.  I DO want access to the whole universe of the game I'm paying for.  I'd be happy enough with it as a single-player game, coop with friends and family makes it doubleplusgood. Having to put up with PvP buggery shits MY whole experience up. How does my enjoying the whole game without that shit up the PvPer's experience? Jealousy because I get to do it without taking the risks he did? QQ


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 06, 2014, 04:02:04 PM
I did not say that.  Like, any of that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 06, 2014, 04:17:15 PM
The same way I never said that they should take away the ability for people to go offline and play by themselves.

To me, it made perfect sense that they allowed everyone to play solo if they wanted, or to play grouped with friends in a co-op persistent galaxy if they preferred it this way.

Not reading other people's argumented posts and hatcheting everything down to the easy and ignorant dichotomy of wolves and sheep seems to be in style in this thread.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on August 06, 2014, 04:40:59 PM
I think it's probably mostly out of fear that they're going to listen to the wolf sub-group of dudes over on their forums rather than anything specifically being said here.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tmp on August 06, 2014, 05:27:39 PM
The way it is now in Elite (subject to changes since it's beta, of course) there's not a single reason at the moment to be on the shared-online server, regardless if you prefer PvP or PvE, because it's just too dangerous for everybody and doesn't offer anything else more than the offline one except for unexpected griefing deaths.
Doesn't being on the shared-online server offer something which you don't get in the offline one, that being the actual PVP which would supposedly be quite important for these who prefer said PVP?

(that this PVP translates to "unexpected griefing deaths" is pretty much par for the course where PVP is involved)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on August 06, 2014, 06:56:50 PM
Oh come on Ironwood.  You said Elite "demands PvP". I said it doesn't demand it while admitting that it does support it. You're objecting to my pointing out your hyperbole even while conceding the core of your point?

You also said "make dangerous star systems PvP and give them WORTHWHILE trade routes".  And I am saying sure! As long as EQUALLY WORTHWHILE trade routes for the same resources with dangerous NPC opponents are equally available to non-PvPers. Or, in the game they are talking, skip the effort of making dual content and use the same star systems with the same trade routes and let people choose their PvP/PvE preference.  If that is somehow what you meant when you excluded everything but the PvP parts, then you have my sincere apologies and free admittance that I overreacted.  But that is not what you said, and probably not what you meant is it?  If implementing the FULL game with access for PvEers to ALL the toys and the same game experience as the PvPers just without the PvP is really what you meant, then cool, we are in full agreement and none of that stuff about "epeen wankery that wants to force the PvP on everyone" by denying me "access to the whole universe of the game I'm paying for" applies to you, and why the hell didn't you say so?

Because that's really one of my main points. PvPers (Many?, Most? a Few?) just cannot seem to stand the thought of a game where all the good stuff can be gotten equally through both PvP and non PvP play.  Not all, because Falconeer at least partly supports both, although then he gets all squirrely about it when it's revealed that he might have to share the same world with the PvEers.  I do think it is fair to say that in general, PvE folks, when not backed into a zero-sum binary exclusive choice of one or the other are usually enthusiastically in favor of letting the PvPers and PvEers play with the same toys without interfering with each other, but very very rarely if ever do PvPers come out in support of that. If you are the rare exception to that rule, I'll gladly offer an apology and grovel at your figurative feet in pennance for offending you by lumping you in with the rest in exchange for you explicitly saying so, because you certainly haven't that I've seen.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: HaemishM on August 06, 2014, 07:04:57 PM
I think it's probably mostly out of fear that they're going to listen to the wolf sub-group of dudes over on their forums rather than anything specifically being said here.

This. The wankers on the forum screaming that people shouldn't be able to take advantage of the single-player experience to boost themselves without danger is basically wolves screaming foul because the sheep don't want to get picked apart.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on August 06, 2014, 07:07:48 PM
I am not picking on Falc, I get your type of play style and I am not lumping you in with the assholes on the official forums. The way things are right now, I have will have the ability to use my limited playtime to grind up some credits for ships and stuff. With this in mind I plan on having a collection of ships for pvp when I want to go looking for it. These people on the official forums want to take that away. They want fat haulers to pop. They have zero interest in me logging on to have some fun with them in combat ships with equal capabilities. The part that really digs into me about what they want is that they can do the same damn thing as me to pay for their pvp habit. Nothing is stopping them from owning several trading ships all over the galaxy and trading in solo so that they can afford to pvp to their hearts content. The issue at hand is literally that they aren't looking for fair fights.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on August 06, 2014, 07:38:28 PM
I think that's right. The wolves are thinking PvP in terms of "merchants that we can kill who will have to hire other killers to protect them and we know that's not going to happen." Here and elsewhere that's really what they're demanding: slow, vulnerable ships that have to go to extraction or transit points where they can be jumped.

What you really need is for anyone who's not a wolf to have a whole host of defensive and evasive capabilities and for there to be some huge disincentive for multiple wolf ships to work together. It has to be just as risky intrinsically, in design terms, to jump someone as it is to be jumped, no matter what. Every encounter has to be somewhat symmetrical. If you build in, permit or incentivize strong asymmetrical PvP and make it even remotely mandatory, that's the end for a game--nobody but assholes want to play it, and the assholes even don't want to, since what they're aiming for is a game that compels non-assholes to be their victims.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: HaemishM on August 06, 2014, 08:10:29 PM
The issue at hand is literally that they aren't looking for fair fights.

This is the majority of the problem with VOCAL PVP players on forums. They don't give a shit about fair fights, they want prey. They are annoyed that the prey won't appear because the prey are all out there making "easy" money by trading without the threat that they'll get spaced by some crotch cricket with a joystick. If the traders lack any sort of defensive capabilities that can equal the pirates, they are the very definition of sheep.

The PVPers will have to do the easy money thing to level up to the point where they can wolf it around, and they will anyway because it's the optimal path to success. And PVPers are all about finding the optimal path to success with little to no risk, so that they can then dominate. It's the nature of PVP.

Bear in mind, I say this as someone who LOVES PVP. LOVE IT. When it's fair. Guys bitching that traders can just go offline and not be assaulted while making money are PVPers who want a steady supply of people to dominate. If those traders could fight back, probably at least half of them would bitch and whine that traders weren't easy pickings.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 06, 2014, 10:46:03 PM
The issue at hand is literally that they aren't looking for fair fights.

This is the majority of the problem with VOCAL PVP players on forums. They don't give a shit about fair fights, they want prey.

This is exactly it.

The current system means that everyone except the small group of people who want unfair fights with prey that can't escape them are catered to. And I love it. For once these arseholes, who's enjoyment comes solely at the expense of other people's enjoyment, are being ignored and marginalised. If FD make the mistake of listening to them it'll kill the game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 07, 2014, 12:09:49 AM
The way it is now in Elite (subject to changes since it's beta, of course) there's not a single reason at the moment to be on the shared-online server, regardless if you prefer PvP or PvE, because it's just too dangerous for everybody and doesn't offer anything else more than the offline one except for unexpected griefing deaths.
Doesn't being on the shared-online server offer something which you don't get in the offline one, that being the actual PVP which would supposedly be quite important for these who prefer said PVP?

(that this PVP translates to "unexpected griefing deaths" is pretty much par for the course where PVP is involved)

Yes, it should. But what I've been trying to say about the qualities of a factionless open world sandbox is not simply that those who love PvP get to kill each other. Hell, there's arena games for that, where you effectively become a PvPer the moment you log in (World of Tanks, Warthunder, MechWarrior, even DOTA and LoL) so it's a complete waste if an online open world becomes inhabited only by griefers (where the problem is not that they want to kill you, it's that they are shitty people to play with). A healthy open world sandboxy game with PvP is inhabited by all sorts of players, including those you can band with to overcome said griefers. As I explained in another detailed post, they should in my opinion try to blend together both populations, if possible, having systems in place to make things harder for griefers at least in some areas while at the same time interesting and rewarding for non-griefers. Because, as I said in another detailed post, it's not just "shooting ships controlled by players" (wolves) or "being shot at by ships controlled by players" (sheep). To me it is about creating an online universe where there are more degrees of player interaction than just "clean" or "KOS". And yes, even EVE achieved that since it's one of the only MMOs where diplomacy (which is player interaction in its highest form) played a major role. Now, Elite won't can't and shouldn't mimick EVE, but it could look at some of working elements of that 11 years old game and try to refine them. And while I perfectly understand that this is not an easy task, I was worried that they aren't even trying anymore convinced that the offline/online switch is absolutely enough. While that will certainly allow players who hate the human element of (deadly) surprise to get their game going offline without any hassle, I wonder if that won't simply leave the online world in the hands of griefers while -in my opinion- they could have tried more things in order to invite (not force) and retain different kind of players in the shared galaxy. Hell, considering how big it will be, they will have enough problems not to make it look empty anyway. Wouldn't it be in the interest of everybody to try and have people inhabit the shared galaxy?

While it's great that they are giving every player the tools to pick their style and flavour (offline, co-op, open), I have a feeling that every player that chooses to pack his/her stuff and bring it offline marks a little miss for the game which claims to be an MMO. So, without taking those tools away, I think they should put more energy in trying to make sure that as many people as possible will want to play in the open online universe. And I think they could achieve that by guaranteeing PvErs a certain degree of security as long as they keep away from low security areas. That would not make those areas inaccessible to PvEers, it would just make them potentially dangerous. It could be worth to try and visit them from time to time, it could be not, but at least everyone would be playing in the same server and more people would meet and make the galaxy feel alive, and more players wth different play styles would be around creating the potential for lots of unique events especially in a game with voice comms.

With all that said, it's beta and so many systems and mechanics are missing. So yes, there's a chance I am creating a fuss over nothing. I just got weirded out by recent discovery that people can just switch off and go into solo-mode (yes, at first it felt like cheating, but now I am getting over it), which is not a problem to me because I'd have lost sheep to kill, it is a problem because I'd have lost people who make my Multiplayer Online game actually Massive. That's why I keep saying that there's more than wolves and sheep. Apparently, reading this thread both me and Haemish are exactly that kind of player in between. And yet he keeps screaming against wolves. While the griefers are vocal, there's a lot of PvP players trying to say the stuff I am trying to say too, except they get jumped and accused of being "wolves" as soon as they mention the word PvP. Griefers are vocal, but non-griefers tend to be hyper-defensive even on message boards, which hurt all sorts of discussions.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 07, 2014, 02:09:42 AM
Oh come on Ironwood.  You said Elite "demands PvP". I said it doesn't demand it while admitting that it does support it. You're objecting to my pointing out your hyperbole even while conceding the core of your point?

You also said "make dangerous star systems PvP and give them WORTHWHILE trade routes".  And I am saying sure! As long as EQUALLY WORTHWHILE trade routes for the same resources with dangerous NPC opponents are equally available to non-PvPers. Or, in the game they are talking, skip the effort of making dual content and use the same star systems with the same trade routes and let people choose their PvP/PvE preference.  If that is somehow what you meant when you excluded everything but the PvP parts, then you have my sincere apologies and free admittance that I overreacted.  But that is not what you said, and probably not what you meant is it?  If implementing the FULL game with access for PvEers to ALL the toys and the same game experience as the PvPers just without the PvP is really what you meant, then cool, we are in full agreement and none of that stuff about "epeen wankery that wants to force the PvP on everyone" by denying me "access to the whole universe of the game I'm paying for" applies to you, and why the hell didn't you say so?

Because that's really one of my main points. PvPers (Many?, Most? a Few?) just cannot seem to stand the thought of a game where all the good stuff can be gotten equally through both PvP and non PvP play.  Not all, because Falconeer at least partly supports both, although then he gets all squirrely about it when it's revealed that he might have to share the same world with the PvEers.  I do think it is fair to say that in general, PvE folks, when not backed into a zero-sum binary exclusive choice of one or the other are usually enthusiastically in favor of letting the PvPers and PvEers play with the same toys without interfering with each other, but very very rarely if ever do PvPers come out in support of that. If you are the rare exception to that rule, I'll gladly offer an apology and grovel at your figurative feet in pennance for offending you by lumping you in with the rest in exchange for you explicitly saying so, because you certainly haven't that I've seen.



Thank you for proving that you were fighting the strawmen in your head.  It was interesting to hear the thought process.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on August 07, 2014, 04:36:11 AM
Falc, I just think it's because most of us have played MMOs and other multiplayer games for decades and we know that the ardent defenders of PvP tend to be what we're calling wolves here, and I think folks have accurately characterized wolves as people who mostly want a design that creates opportunities for asymmetrical combat--a chance to surprise & ambush unprepared players who have little to no chance to succeed in fighting back. Generally what that means is a design that has two pathways for optimization, that rewards min-maxing, so that a player who is doing PvE content has put all their resources into that style of play and a "wolf" on the other hand is optimize to kill other players.

We know that this is not just how we think, but what tends to happen when developers try to please or appease this faction of players. They put in a toggle or a location where PvP can happen. No one goes there but the PvPers. The PvPers complain that it's a ghetto, so the developers try to do something to incentivize being in the PvP location or flipping the toggle. The more powerful the incentive is in relation to PvE playstyle, the more the PvE players resent it: all the developer has done is force players to be targets for the amusement of other players.

To make it fun in a seamless open world, I think you have to do something in design terms that makes it essentially costless to have powerful defensive and evasive systems. E.g., if you make strong defensive and evasive systems available only to someone who is min-maxing in that direction (at the cost of something else that PvE players need or want), nobody will invest in that direction and so everyone will be exposed to a PvP maximizer. Or in general you need to try to get rid of designs that reward specialization and maximization so that no one is a "sheep" and no one is a "wolf". But if you do that, you make all ships the same essentially and all players the same, and that's boring too. But in any event, a developer who wants open world PvP to provide a bit of "spice", a bit of uncertainty, but not to be the dominant point of gameplay, has got to think very, very carefully about it. Most of the common design architectures that make it possible end up making it an unpleasant experience for many players.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 07, 2014, 05:38:06 AM

We know that this is not just how we think, but what tends to happen when developers try to please or appease this faction of players. They put in a toggle or a location where PvP can happen. No one goes there but the PvPers. The PvPers complain that it's a ghetto, so the developers try to do something to incentivize being in the PvP location or flipping the toggle. The more powerful the incentive is in relation to PvE playstyle, the more the PvE players resent it: all the developer has done is force players to be targets for the amusement of other players.


I was with you all the way up to the second bit;  in this case, you're not really complaining about PvP, you're complaining about Bad Developers. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 07, 2014, 05:54:26 AM
I wonder though: how many games can you think of over the past 15 years where the developers listened to wolves and made a normally functional MMORPG into a butchery where sheep-players get slayed over and over until they stop playing?

Honestly, I understand why people hate that kind of gameplay, but I think it doesn't really exist anymore and it's more just a straw argument and a bad memory resulting from some old Corp Por trauma from who knows what kind of old game where they happened to roll on a PvP server, and it stuck with them forever as if the industry had been producing open world full loot permadeath wolf paradise PvP games for the past decade.

Dammit, as someone who loves open world PvP, what I know is that I've been missing that scary experience since pre-Trammel Ultima Online and that was 1998. Since then, every single game has been NOT LISTENING to the loud vocal PvP mass and has been instead listening to the less vocal but more remunerative PvE population. Understandable, I get it.

But still, for all I can remember, all the wolves vs sheep things so many people complain about haven't happened at all for a LONG time, and games that had similar mechanics have been slowly changed to support and assist the non-griefers more than the griefers.

So, what exactly is anyone so scared about? Has the loud vocal wolf PvP community ever changed any Dev decision in their favour since.. ever? Haven't every game since Ultima Online (included) tried to tone down the unfair PvP mechanics to make things less mean and retain all sorts of players?

I feel that -to use an easily recognizable term- the sheep have won their battle a long long time ago and pretty much all MMOs outside of South Korea have been written for them, not the wolves. Even the epitome of evil, EVE has systems in place to ensure that the sheep can go around safely. And the same is going to be for Elite Dangerous, that's for sure.

So, why all this fear for asimmetrical, unfair PvP that kind of never happens in any game since the end of previous century?

Honestly, you know what I really call unfair asimetrical PvP bullshit that I'll never understand and accept? Stealth mechanics, backstabbing rogue bullshit. Stunlock, crowd control, and everything that allows someone to one-shot you from nowhere unless you happened to choose the right combination of class and items many weeks prior. That's crap, and that is omnipresent, you can find something like it in every MMORPG since ever. But games where you can gank everything in sight without fear of repercussions? Or games that had a solid PvE experience but then the Devs listened to the wolves and changed them into carebear meatgrinders? I can't think of a single one. Can you?




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on August 07, 2014, 07:03:39 AM
The problem isn't that the die-hard PvPers exist, it's that they exist out of proportion to the population because they'll flock to a game that is both good and allows for easy pickings.  It rapidly becomes lopsided as more and more people who don't want to be bothered go elsewhere.

You're already seeing it in action with the single-player switch.

I'm not sure it's possible to prevent it without some strong measures to make the number of conflict incidents either low or not very punishing to the PvE-oriented victims.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 07, 2014, 07:08:35 AM
If FDEV have their way and implement all they say they're going to, then Elite could be an interesting open world experience. Listening to the Twitch stream they did last night, they talked about the fact that at the moment there aren't really many consequences for player behaviour - more than in PB but still not much.  They used, as an example, reputation - that if you habitually pirate in Federation space then your rep will drop so low that you'll be denied docking in Federation space.  It doesn't matter to them whether you're pirating players in Open or NPCs in Solo, the consequences will be the same. If that means that players wanted by the Federation are also hounded by NPC (and player) bounty hunters or have more Police hassling them then that'll make their life more difficult in those systems and, consequently, safer for more legit players (as in traders, explorers etc).

It doesn't stop pirate players from attempting to pirate in safe Democratic systems (was that what they were called in Elite) but it should be trickier for them to do so.  Conversely, they're likely to have free reign in Anarchy systems and can be the hunter rather than the hunted.  However, it is likely that players focused on trading and who don't do combat so much will avoid those areas - and may well do so even in the Solo mode despite no risk of PvP.

So essentially...

It's Elite though.  It demands PvP.  And the original game even had the setup that would make for easy PvP.  Every planet had a danger rating.  You went there, you got challenged by the shit AI.  Just make dangerous Star Systems PvP and give them WORTHWHILE trade routes as well and it would be a heaving hive of consensual fun.

I'm really not seeing the problem conceptually, but hey ho.

Ironwood's right - except I don't think there's any need to make dangerous star systems PvP or make specific non PvP areas. Keep it all open. And I think the worthwhile trade routes will also exist because the concept of lucrative contraband and smuggling is also well established in the Elite universe with Narcotics, Slaves, Firearms and so on.  Iirc correctly they were always more available in Anarchy systems than elsewhere - anywhere the pirates are and the lawgivers aren't, whether they're NPC or players.  Also (and again it's been a while so I might be wrong) I'm sure the regions in Frontier between Federation and Imperial Space were definitely a bit dicey but if you wanted to trade up to an Imperial Courier, only available in Imperial Space, then you had to pass through those areas and accept the risks of doing so. Or take the long route around which would take longer and cost you more in fuel. It's likely to be similar again from noticing that Fed and Imp space are nowhere near each other.

The problem at the moment is the game is still in Beta and the reputation system and bounty system aren't yet in place. The policing system is bare bones at the moment and I think it may be a little bugged (I need to check again - the other night I tried shooting up a Viper patrolling outside Azeban and it didn't even turn hostile to me) but if the devs implement what they say they will then the any player in the game is welcome to sit outside a station shooting at people but in a "safe" system, I would expect it to be a challenge for them and not for them to be able to do it with impunity like they could in PBeta. 

I get Falc's concerns too - that the Open mode will seem a little empty. Only time will tell on this but I suspect that there will be enough players to make it worthwhile given the popularity of both EVE and DayZ etc. Personally I don't mind the fact that it all seems empty at the moment - I spent several hours pissing around in Open last night and saw 2, maybe 3 players? Suits me fine - gives me the feeling that space is big and vast and we're alone in it.

Quote from: Douglas Adams
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on August 07, 2014, 08:32:58 AM
I'm late to the PvP discussion but I find it pretty great that I can decide if I want to engage in online mode or not. If it was PvP and online only I probably wouldn't have bothered to buy it. That's because PvP in my opinion is a nifty concept in theory but almost never works out in actual games and it's great that I can opt out in ED.

The problem with PvP in games is that the risk lies solely with the gamers that don't constantly engage in PvP and don't want to live the ganker lifestyle and the social structures that those games evolve reflect that fact. To put it another way, players that aren't gankers have to constantly worry about gankers while the opposite isn't necessarily true. Gankers don't need to worry about the normal players. So you either get games where the player base evolves into pseudo-nations that invest in actual infrastructure and services to protect 'borders' and 'citizens', like in eve or you get games where all 'normal' players have been driven away over time and all that is left is gankers killing each other with the game devolving into some sort of proto-anarchy. This also leads to players who don't want to constantly worry about getting killed getting relegated to only play inside 'safe zone' ghettos.

In real life an outlaw who gets caught or a gang that finally faces the angry mob brandishing torches and pitchforks will get killed or at least end up in prison -that's actual risk vs. reward. In PvP games those people just have to wait for respawn and can go on to harass the next guy. So if you play as an explorer or a trader or any role that doesn't focus primarily on PvP you might just have lost weeks or months of progress and you also have to structure your entire gaming existence around protection against and avoidance of PvPers. For the PvPer himself it's usually just a minor inconvenience to wait for the respawn and get going again.

How often have you experienced the determined PvPer who - even when he gets killed - just comes around a few minutes later to harass you again until you finally cave and log out for the night? That's basically a staple of every MMO that has PvP. Eve evolved into a game where people formed what are essentially nations to protect each other against those kind of player. Even so you are still going to have a pretty miserable time when you are not part of a corporation.

For the 'if you venture out into the unknown there will be a risk but you might reap rewards' argument to actually work there needs to be a way that living the pirate lifestyle also involves an actual risk to lose what can be weeks or months of progression at least. Otherwise it will always be faster and easier to just gank players and you'll drive away the people that don't find that attractive


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on August 07, 2014, 08:43:16 AM
The reason people who've gamed a long time get nervous is that they know in a multiplayer game with persistent servers and a live management team, the relationship between Bad Developers and Jackhole Players is a dynamic one. Developers who start as Good Developers sometimes flip towards Badness because they listen to Jackholes lobbying them incessantly. Or they underhit their targets for box sales or subs and so they start to panic a bit and grab at whatever ideas they're hearing. Or devs who understand a game when they're testing it with a small number of really intense players don't understand why features and mechanics worked well then and don't work well when a bunch of casual players show up, or when a big group of Goons come in determined to subvert the design, etc.

I agree that in many ways none of us have seen anything but the standard PvP toggle/special PvP arena approaches for a very long time, which is why we're both interested and worried when we think that something other than that awkward and unsatisfying approach might be in the wind.

One other model besides EVE that seems a bit apropros is Dark Souls 2. It lacks that sense of persistent presence of hundreds of other players directly in your world, but I've never found being invaded to be deeply bothersome, for all sorts of reasons. First, because I usually stand a chance against the invader; second, because you don't usually get invaded again and again and again by the same guy; because there are ways to prevent invasions; because there's lots of coop play and lots of ways to opt in or opt out of various kinds of PvP.  It doesn't work as a model for Elite directly, but there are some lessons to be learned.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: HaemishM on August 07, 2014, 08:59:31 AM
Apparently, reading this thread both me and Haemish are exactly that kind of player in between. And yet he keeps screaming against wolves.

Would it help if I just called them a slavering mongoloid horde of sociopathic crotch crickets nibbling at the delicate nether regions of online communities?

EDIT:
I wonder though: how many games can you think of over the past 15 years where the developers listened to wolves and made a normally functional MMORPG into a butchery where sheep-players get slayed over and over until they stop playing?

Shadowbane. That place wasn't just ruined by SB.exe and various bugs, it also catered to the shittiest, most sociopathic cunts and as a result, only cunts played it for very long. And it wasn't sheep players, it was entire guilds that stopped playing because they got tired of having their tree burned to the ground at the time when they were least able to defend it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 07, 2014, 09:49:09 AM
Isn't that the other way around Haem? Shadowbane started like that, and despite what the wolves wanted, they introduced scheduled sieges after a while. That's my point: Devs never listen to wolves, they always (and rightfully) always change their games to try and retain the non-griefers. It's never the other way around. Worrying about anarchic gameplay that kils your enjoyement is so XX century. Since the invention of "ruleset servers" I really don't understand what's the big fear about wolves anymore.

Honestly, I was expecting someone to come up with the only game that hasn't budged one bit to non-griefers yet, which is DayZ. And yet, with all its brutal senseless violence, that game has produced some of the most interesting and original player interactions since the invention of online worlds. Granted, it's not an MMO, so we should leave it out of this conversation, but that's the only product I can think of that hasn't moved one bit away (yet) from its ruthless origin despite the constant requests for PvE only servers, safehouses and all that kind of stuff.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 07, 2014, 09:51:12 AM
This is a great discussion, several orders of magnitude more interesting & useful & articulate than anything on the E:D forums. It's a crying shame that official forums for any game get reduced to festering cesspits of gibbering idiots calling each other names.

I do think that most people are somewhere in-between the two caricatures of wolf & sheep. I'm far happier avoiding PVP most of the time but occasionally I'm happy to have a go and I recognise the value it has in creating tension & atmosphere. What I'm not prepared to put up with is the risk of being ganked at any time. EVE (keep coming back to this example, I know) had safe areas, sure, and character security ratings, but that didn't stop suicide gankers and alt-recycling. The determined griefers will always find a way to game the system.

Wherever you were in EVE you could not relax - it was always necessary to maintain a high state of alert to prevent being caught out by scams, tricks, mistakes, etc. That's great when you're in the mood for that, but these days, in my late 40s, I'm rarely in that mood and just want to play a game and have a laugh and enjoy myself with friends.

I do have high hopes for all of the crime & punishment systems that FD have talked about and I think that the majority of the discussion here is kind of moot until we see how it develops out of beta. However, on the official forums at the moment the battle that's being waged is over unfettered transfer between the solo/group/open options. The determined PVPers are focussing on that and my fear is that FD will slip up and cede that, separating the playstyles somehow.

I also think that the spectre of PVP griefing that most people fear would become far less scary if there were ways to reduce the risk of the loss of, for instance, a fully-loaded cargo vessel being as catastrophic as it currently can be. Again, time will tell.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on August 07, 2014, 10:07:17 AM
I understand the sense that something will be missing with the empty open play mode. That hurts anyone, PvE or PvP inclined, who is looking for some social interaction.

Frankly, I thought original EQ and AC had pretty good solutions to this. Both types could coexist in the same world, and self-flagged to choose which playstyle they experienced.  Everybody could still see and talk to each other, you just couldn't kill each other unless you both flagged for it.  But it still left lots of other avenues for griefing and PvPers seemed to absolutely hate it anyway. ED is putting a different spin on that but it's not perfect either because of the loss of serendipitous encounters as the price paid to avoid being ganked. Another possibility would be a fourth mode besides solo, group or open. No clue what to call it but essentially it would be Open PvE, with hopefully lots of players but no killing. But that has obvious "reality" issues (in a spaceship game with FTL! LOL) plus who knows what other risks of griefing behavior to consider so there's plenty of reasons for not including it.





Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 07, 2014, 10:12:06 AM
I also think that the spectre of PVP griefing that most people fear would become far less scary if there were ways to reduce the risk of the loss of, for instance, a fully-loaded cargo vessel being as catastrophic as it currently can be. Again, time will tell.

That maybe in the works.  (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showpost.php?p=644195&postcount=82)

Quote
We totally understand that when the game fails and nukes your career it's horrible.

Unfortunately, the fact is that whilst we are working on making the game, this can and does happen unintentionally - it's the bane of pre-release software and also one of the things that beta testing specifically help us track down and fix, making release that much better.

We don't have all the systems for softening ship destruction operating yet either. There's a creditor system we want that will allow Commanders to sink into debt but retain their ship (this also adds hooks for missions and events).

There are the ranking systems that should help Commanders gauge the risk of each encounters.

There's the wing formation to allow Commanders to group up for added security.

There's a new ship insurance policy feature we're considering that will reduce or remove the cost of ship destruction for a set period.

And there's various ongoing updates to make sure that the game play spikes less often and more predictibly.

The bottom line is that I hope you guys don't give up, we're trying to make something that's a little different, very cool, and fun.

Risk is a big part of that for us - the risk is what makes success so satisfying, but we're not indifferent to the issues you testing folk are encountering - that's what this pre-release period is all about, testing our theories, tweaking them, changing them into something we feel gives the best result for the game.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 07, 2014, 10:35:13 AM
Not really interested in getting into all of them, but a lot of you are using examples that just don't seem to 'fit' terribly well here.  It's almost like this is a FRPG MMO discussion rather than one about an extremely large universe with FTL travel.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on August 07, 2014, 10:36:48 AM
I find it interesting that so many people characterize pro PvP players as 'never looking for fair fights' when the PvE players are exactly the same. They don't want to enter a fight they can't win, so they play versus the utterly predictable NPCs.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 07, 2014, 10:58:21 AM
All I know is if I can't dip my toe into some Player Versus Player ship combat, what's the fucking point ?  I may as well just fire up an emulator.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on August 07, 2014, 11:29:40 AM
Eh, the PvE discussion is kind of the same, though. It's why I hate highly choreographed boss fights and love stuff where there's a more unpredictable AI involved, or some kind of terrain that leads to different kinds of outcomes and a bit of luck depending on how you move and what you do.

The thing in any big-scale game that you hope to play repeatedly over a long period of time is that there needs to be a constantly renewed source of contingency and unpredictability. Players *and* environment can provide that, but not by accident.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 07, 2014, 12:49:58 PM
This is not a game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLPwhzIH124)

 :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: HaemishM on August 07, 2014, 01:10:31 PM
Well, I don't actually think of E:D as being an MMO either, no matter how open universe it is.

Look, the wolves in this case seem to be a just a bit right - if the switch to offline protects people from unwanted player interactions, then the open world will be empty of most PVP except for the people who are actively out looking for it. It will become Pirate Universe - and that seems a real shame. But I absolutely think the game should allow that switch that says "don't fuck with my shit."

I've yet to see an open-world type of game that allows open PVP where the life of a "murderer" is made harder than the life of a "law-abiding citizen." Piracy should be a risky business where the pirate is unable to get ship repairs, can't afford better ships and equipment than his prey, and is hunted by authority enough that just getting a full night's sleep is rare. That requires the robust structure of civilization. All too often, open world games don't have that structure of civilization, so the pirate is actually better off being a pirate than being a square. It's a mixture of the anonymity of the player killer, the lack of active law enforcement, the reluctance of anti-PK player organizations as well as the huge advantage of first strike in the game mechanics (whether that be from stealth or ambush). I'm speaking specifically about PK banditry or piracy, since that's the form of PVP we're talking about.

It seems PVP players like me want more war-style (two organized sides fighting) PVP and less bandit-style PVP (lone murderers mugging people). One of those should be encouraged, the other should be discouraged with game mechanics that make virtual life hard on a pimp pirate.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on August 07, 2014, 06:04:53 PM
Well, I don't actually think of E:D as being an MMO either, no matter how open universe it is.

Look, the wolves in this case seem to be a just a bit right - if the switch to offline protects people from unwanted player interactions, then the open world will be empty of most PVP except for the people who are actively out looking for it. It will become Pirate Universe - and that seems a real shame. But I absolutely think the game should allow that switch that says "don't fuck with my shit."

I've yet to see an open-world type of game that allows open PVP where the life of a "murderer" is made harder than the life of a "law-abiding citizen." Piracy should be a risky business where the pirate is unable to get ship repairs, can't afford better ships and equipment than his prey, and is hunted by authority enough that just getting a full night's sleep is rare. That requires the robust structure of civilization. All too often, open world games don't have that structure of civilization, so the pirate is actually better off being a pirate than being a square. It's a mixture of the anonymity of the player killer, the lack of active law enforcement, the reluctance of anti-PK player organizations as well as the huge advantage of first strike in the game mechanics (whether that be from stealth or ambush). I'm speaking specifically about PK banditry or piracy, since that's the form of PVP we're talking about.

It seems PVP players like me want more war-style (two organized sides fighting) PVP and less bandit-style PVP (lone murderers mugging people). One of those should be encouraged, the other should be discouraged with game mechanics that make virtual life hard on a pimp pirate.

I think this pretty much gets it just right. Being a pirate should be the hardest thing that can happen in a world like this. The thing that most often has you living on the edge, scared of losing your stake, but in it for the thrill and the score. It should be like Firefly. Or like a lot of 16th-17th C. piracy. I was just reading the other day about a guy who was a pirate, a naturalist and an early scientist (his observations of tides and nature and environments were more important to him than the money he got, and he protected them more carefully in a tube he wore on his back). A lot of the time, he and his guys lost money or were at very serious risk of their lives. They were gnats buzzing around the edges of a big system. Every once in a while, they got the big score, but they were never safe or secure or rulers of the system.

If you want pirates and open-world PvP, that's what it has to feel like: the riskiest thing in the whole system, occasionally leading to great satisfaction, but most often to tears and failure.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on August 08, 2014, 02:18:33 AM
I find it interesting that so many people characterize pro PvP players as 'never looking for fair fights' when the PvE players are exactly the same. They don't want to enter a fight they can't win, so they play versus the utterly predictable NPCs.

No we're not calling 'pro PvP players' (whatever that may be) that. I can't even remember anyone in this thread putting pro and PvP and player right next to each other. We're not talking about the 'let's all meet in Crossroads and do battle' crowd or the Arena crowd or the 'this universe is not big enough for both of our corporations' crowd etc.. We'tre talking about all of the low life griefers that PvP also attracts in large numbers. They are the bane of every PvP focused online experience, because it's easy, because the risk invoolved is negligable because it's 'fun' to grief players and get their reactions. The highwaymen of the online gaming world just without the risk of being shot or beaten to death by an angry mob. The people even pro PvPers wish would simply go away.

Look if I play Eve I know exactly what I get myself into and even that game evolved into an experience that tries to minimize the impact all of that background low-level griefing has on players. So even the players in one of the most successful PvP experiences out there (in a 'it's a dog eat dog, high risk and high rewards, every man for himself' way) basically said 'fuck this shit' and actively work against it. That is OK and occasionally fun and a testament of just how great gaming can be. It's just not what I look for in a game. That's why I no longer play Eve.

It kind of thwarts the theme of escapism and 'winding down' after a long day at work if online games are just 'work 2.0' where I still have to play a security guard or accountant and worry about taxes and bills and people mugging me in a dark alley.

Therefore I like it really really much that I can opt out of the whole thing. I therefore won't be bothered by it and I also won't be the guy that is constantly whining about it on the forums and trying to deprive PvPers of their way to play. I can play Elite like a single player game and I'm content with that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on August 08, 2014, 02:31:58 AM
Not really interested in getting into all of them, but a lot of you are using examples that just don't seem to 'fit' terribly well here.  It's almost like this is a FRPG MMO discussion rather than one about an extremely large universe with FTL travel.


Why? Because the galaxy might be so large that you might simply not encounter another player for days? Maybe, if not you'll get basically the same amount of low-life cockmunchers you have in every other online game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 08, 2014, 03:59:09 AM
Yes, that's part of it certainly.  Also, having AI Police enabled on less dangerous star systems with a rising presence scale, also the ability to hit Hyperspace and get the Fuck Out Of Dodge.

I just don't see it following the usual 'Trammel' or 'Tarran Mill' pattern of hardcore I cannot Get Away I Need To Be Here Gankage.

Not unless, as previously discussed, Bad Development happens.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on August 08, 2014, 11:32:43 AM
Isn't it still like in the original? Where you can't jump or boost when there are other ships around or you are too close to a planet?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 08, 2014, 11:35:06 AM
Yes, and different ships provide different amounts of "mass lock", depending of course on their mass.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on August 08, 2014, 12:30:45 PM
I find it interesting that so many people characterize pro PvP players as 'never looking for fair fights' when the PvE players are exactly the same. They don't want to enter a fight they can't win, so they play versus the utterly predictable NPCs.

 :uhrr:

NPCs, won't someone think of their feelings?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on August 08, 2014, 12:40:51 PM
I find it interesting that so many people characterize pro PvP players as 'never looking for fair fights' when the PvE players are exactly the same. They don't want to enter a fight they can't win, so they play versus the utterly predictable NPCs.

 :uhrr:

NPCs, won't someone think of their feelings?

I don't think that was the point.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Typhon on August 08, 2014, 01:27:34 PM
I'm pretty sure Ingmar hit it dead-on there.

But let me belabor it for you. 

-Classic "wolf" stereo-type is a sociopath that enjoys (or otherwise derives a sense of self-worth by) killing players that are unable to mount an adequate defense and are frustrated by that experience.
-WayAbvPar artfully skews comments from "wolf" to "pro PvP" because he's evil and derives pleasure from dropping one-line posts that seem to bring up a good point, but are really just word bombs.  Diabolically clever, honestly.  Kudos to you, sir. 
-He then posits a correspondence between players that that enjoy (or otherwise derives a sense of self-worth by) killing NPCs that are BY DESIGN unable to mount an adequate defense and are incapable of thought or feelings.
-Ingmar points out that his post is  :uhrr:  because NPC are designed to suck and have no feelings.
-You fall into Way's trap.  How does that feel?  You were largely defenseless.  I'm betting he derived a sense of self-worth from this little forum tempest (ok, tempest is pure hyperbole, but I'm amusing myself here, cut me some slack).

Clearly Way is a forum "wolf" and a mod.  Just doesn't seem right.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 08, 2014, 03:35:14 PM
Nothing meaningful in today's weekly newsletter, except that we'll get little ship models for sale soon.

Well, at least when David Braben sells you a ship for real money, it's a "real" ship.  :why_so_serious:



(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20model.jpg)



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Venkman on August 08, 2014, 07:17:55 PM
Beta is $75?!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ingmar on August 08, 2014, 09:13:00 PM
It would be pretty rude to their backers to charge less for the beta than the cost of the Kickstarter tier that got people into beta. That's normally why these beta/early access things cost so much.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hutch on August 08, 2014, 09:37:56 PM
Wait for the Steam sale.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 09, 2014, 01:13:42 AM
What Ingmar said. Plus, Braben said multiple times he aimed for betatester "quality" over "quantity", meaning he wanted to keep the numbers of people into the beta low by inflating the price but at the same time making sure those who bought in were dedicated and hopefully less immature. That is why the first stages of alpha were 300$.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Venkman on August 09, 2014, 08:27:33 PM
Wait for the Steam sale.

That.

The rest makes sense. But only if you drink their kool-aid. Good on them, but man, might as well just say it's a closed beta. Keep the early adopters even happier in their investment instead of pretending to open the flood gates.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on August 09, 2014, 09:04:55 PM
I find it interesting that so many people characterize pro PvP players as 'never looking for fair fights' when the PvE players are exactly the same. They don't want to enter a fight they can't win, so they play versus the utterly predictable NPCs.

I think you're right; none of the players are looking for fair fights, but the most fun games seem to be those where the developers only allow for strictly fair fights.  For example, it would be cool to be able to outfit my bulk transport ship as a flying fortress, and, to use the real world example, flying fortress planes were clearly vulnerable to fighter attacks, but did pose a threat to the attackers.  I'd love to see that in a game, and am disappointed by EVE's completely disarmed and very vulnerable transports.  If the devs give the wolves plenty of firepower to have fun and dominate, they have to let the sheep fortress up enough to have their "I survived" fun, too.  Fair fights all around: neither PVP'ers nor PVE'ers get what they want (no easy ganks, no guaranteed safety, outcome of encounters is chaotic).

Devs keep designing diminishing returns into their games, when in fact they should put in chaos theory.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hoax on August 10, 2014, 10:15:26 AM
Not designing around pvp is stupid for this type of game, always has been always will be.

If you don't have pvp then "the world" must provide all the content. Problem is that the world cannot provide all the content because a) pve content is always too easy or too hard for the majority of players and b) pve content will always be consumed faster than it can be created.

ajax's point is a good one as is what people were saying about how murdering lawbreaker has historically been the easiest and most profitable profession in so many games. It would be nice to see game devs move away from those mistakes.

Designing systems that facilitate, fairer, more fun, more robust player interactions take a shitton more vision and balls than making a foozle factory for players to camp and kill. So considering how bad game devs often are at the foozle factory part its no surprise that the pvp stuff is often a big debacle.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 10, 2014, 11:12:57 AM
EDIT: Never mind.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Stormwaltz on August 10, 2014, 08:36:26 PM
If you don't have pvp then "the world" must provide all the content. Problem is that the world cannot provide all the content because a) pve content is always too easy or too hard for the majority of players and b) pve content will always be consumed faster than it can be created.

The world can provide all the content if the developers focus on creating systems that procedurally generate experiences rather than one-shot, hand-crafted, consumable content.

I typed a lot more, but fuck it: the TL;DR is that thanks to WoW, people have been brainwashed to think PvE = hand-crafted story. PvE can be GTA, or Skyrim, or Dwarf Fortress. Pathfinder Online's PvE mob escalation system is something I thought of nearly ten years ago, spinning my wheels on UO's abortive ecology and AC1's random spawn system.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hoax on August 10, 2014, 09:58:37 PM
I play a good amount of ARPG's and fully appreciate procedural content and frankly consider it to be much more interesting than hand crafted shit that can only be interesting and new once.

But we are farther away from game devs creating a gameworld that fights back and lives and changes based on player inputs than we are on devs not fucking up pvp balance. Which is to say we don't seem to be close to either of them on a good day.

The first game that makes a good honest attempt at delivering such a system will have my money for sure. There once was a MMO that didn't get past concept art and design devblogs called Charr: The Grim Fate or something like that. I still remember it to this day because they wanted to create a world where the npc's were 90% from a hostile opposing faction that was at war with the human (PC) settler faction. It sounded amazing in theory but it was even less of a real game than Star Citizen is.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on August 11, 2014, 04:58:18 AM
God, yes, to systems that procedurally generate content. And to some NPCs with autonomous AI that has a Maslowe hierarchy of needs/objectives. Mix that in with some hand-crafted stuff and you can have a large world that feels perpetually fresh and surprising. But nobody seems to want to get anywhere near this.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: palmer_eldritch on August 11, 2014, 07:05:40 AM
I'd like to be a space trucker, hauling bits and bobs from one star system to another in a laid back and leisurely way. And doing this in a universe with hundreds or thousands of other people doing their thing would be pretty cool. I'd also like to be fairly confident of not getting blown up, as long as I manage to dock successfully. Elite as a sort of flight simulator. And maybe there would be some sort of big battle somewhere and I could read about it on the intergalactic news while I was hauling stuff.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tmp on August 11, 2014, 09:14:29 AM
I typed a lot more, but fuck it: the TL;DR is that thanks to WoW, people have been brainwashed to think PvE = hand-crafted story. PvE can be GTA, or Skyrim, or Dwarf Fortress. Pathfinder Online's PvE mob escalation system is something I thought of nearly ten years ago, spinning my wheels on UO's abortive ecology and AC1's random spawn system.
For that matter the original Frontier had procedural/random missions generated as one of its system, iirc.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 11, 2014, 01:45:43 PM
God, yes, to systems that procedurally generate content. And to some NPCs with autonomous AI that has a Maslowe hierarchy of needs/objectives. Mix that in with some hand-crafted stuff and you can have a large world that feels perpetually fresh and surprising. But nobody seems to want to get anywhere near this.

I might be missing something but what you're describing is what Frontier are trying to achieve with Elite. Obviously time will tell whether they succeed or not but here are their design overviews for

Background Simulation (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6305)

Persistent NPCs (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7494)

Injected events (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7829)

And as for this:

Elite as a sort of flight simulator. And maybe there would be some sort of big battle somewhere and I could read about it on the intergalactic news while I was hauling stuff.

See Newsfeeds (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6370)

How much of this all will be ready for release, I have no idea (sorry Falc, stealing your line here!)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 12, 2014, 02:50:12 AM
Worth reposting the constantly updated list of stuff that will be added (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=19639) for launch, scheduled in about 6 months.


Also, relevant to the PvP discussion, here's some Devs words about PvP interactions in supercruise and interdictions. (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showpost.php?p=382888&postcount=11)

Quote
- It certainly requires some level of player skill to interdict. Current intention is that the the defending player has multiple options to evade & avoid, otherwise if the interdiction is successful you both drop to normal flight with varying levels of disruption.
- Yes you can screw it up (or be defended against) & let the other pilot escape while you plummet.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 12, 2014, 11:10:46 PM
Another episode (http://youtu.be/QEugO8uBOXQ) of Witchspace Diaries. Testing a Hauler out in combat  :awesome_for_real:

Still with the bloody audio issues too, driving us round the bend.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on August 16, 2014, 01:45:21 AM
Finally got around to play for a few hours last night.

It's already pretty fun and immersive even for a beta. It also has quite a learning curve. It took me three restarts until I successfully managed to pull off a docking maneuver. I had to watch a few youtube tutorials to get a feel for the controls (the manual is pretty basic at this point) and after the third jump between a few federation systems I got interdicted by three Kraits and died because I couldn't escape or kill them with my two measly pulse lasers on my sidewinder.

God is this game gorgeous though, even on lowest settings. 55 systems already feels to small, I just want to explore all of it. I'd also probably play it on the biggest display I could find or use a VR solution. This game just feels like you want it to play on an Oculus Rift. I'll also pretty much have to invest in a hotas system.

The interface is a bit clunky still but it's already got the original elite feel so I'm confident.

I love what they've managed to achieve though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 16, 2014, 01:55:03 AM
My personal advice if you are using mouse and keyboard: go to options and make sure to put "roll" on the a and d key, and "yaw" on the horizontal mouse axis. It makes aiming at enemies a million times easier (since the crosshair will move around more intuitively).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on August 16, 2014, 08:35:54 AM
I'm using a cheap flightstick (Madcatz FLY5) I wanted to see if the game itself is enough fun to warrant the purchase of a HOTAS system. Default setup is like you would expect it from classic elite. Pitch and roll on the joystick axis and yaw by twisting the handle. It has just been quite a while since I played any sort of simulation involving dogfighting and it has been even longer since I've played Elite and I'm a bit rusty.

The sidewinder is also no Cobra MK II.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on August 16, 2014, 08:36:31 AM
From the latest development newsletter:

Finally - there’s a great tradition here in Köln of lovers symbolising their feelings for each other by fixing a padlock to one of the city’s bridges over the Rhine.

This inspired us to leave 3 free Elite: Dangerous beta keys in amongst the padlocks on the bridge.

This is obviously a first come, first served opportunity – good luck finding them and remember to let us know when you have found them and send us pictures


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 16, 2014, 01:28:07 PM
You can escape any interdiction in any ship if you put full pips to engines and just burn away then hit frameshift as soon as it's off cooldown, just for future reference :)

It is proper beautiful isn't it? Have you played around with the high-res screenshots yet (alt-f10)? Great fun :) 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on August 16, 2014, 03:17:56 PM
I've spent most of the day hauling cargo around the universe and I'm still enjoying myself immensely.  They've pretty much nailed the feel of flying through space, not the realism, just how you feel it should be. The frameshift animation, the systems and planets, the way the computer voice sounds. You can grasp just how mindboggingly huge, vast and empty space is.

Even if the game never becomes more than it is right now it would still be $60 well spent. I feel like I'm ten again and playing the original Elite on my C64. It is a great achievement.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 20, 2014, 06:24:53 AM
30 years later...

(http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/elite-screens-merged.png?w=780&h=9999&crop=0)


More here. (http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/15/elite-30-years-on-screenshots/)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 21, 2014, 07:45:36 AM
Bootlegging 101 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbaLJTGHkj8) by Isinona

Great video!

EDIT: also, WIP video of animated atmospheric features (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCQXXNCawF4). Not quite as impressive as the sun flares imo but still.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 21, 2014, 08:29:46 AM
Holy Shit, that's awesome.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pagz on August 22, 2014, 12:43:25 AM
That bootlegging 101 video is exactly the kind of detail I want in a game like this, wow.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 22, 2014, 06:08:15 AM
Newsletter 37 is out (http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=c695f8c0ad) but first bit of content are the two videos from my last post.  However, they do talk about Outposts which are interesting - a small scale alternative to space stations that are going to be introduced in Beta 2.

(http://elitedangerous.com/extra/newsletter_2014_08_22/outpost_cafe.jpg)

The Galnet news at the bottom is interesting because FD seem to have switched on dynamic markets which have led to a crash and supply shortage in some systems.  Someone on the forum has done quite a good job of analysing this (graphs and everything!) in this forum post (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=36531).  Haven't checked it out myself yet because I was too busy stealing gold from pirates!  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 22, 2014, 06:47:50 AM
These new outposts are getting me so excited I am tempted to buy Frontier Developments stocks.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20outpost_industrial.jpg)

Quote
Not all outposts will be able to accommodate all ships. Some of the smaller outposts will only have small landing pads, so to visit them you will need to have one of the smaller ship types.

Also you may find that the pads are all occupied when you arrive, so you cannot stop until someone vacates the pad. Looking on the bright side, in areas without law enforcement there are several ways to encourage people to move on…


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Maven on August 23, 2014, 04:58:59 AM
I like that Bootlegging 101's presentation style. Gameplay with no annoying voiceover. Just textual commentary that has the right verbage and depth about it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 24, 2014, 10:40:27 PM
Don't worry, we'll be back with some suitably annoying voiceover and shallowness for your pleasure soon.  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 29, 2014, 12:14:58 PM
Moar pics from newsletter 38 (http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=a6f83ce7d1)!

Ship weathering effects:

(http://elitedangerous.com/extra/newsletter_2014_08_29/Weathering.jpg)

New Ocellus Starport (Bernal Sphere) (which may move between systems):

(http://elitedangerous.com/extra/newsletter_2014_08_29/Screenshot_0247.jpg)

And mentions of new stuff in Beta 2:

- New missions (escort missions, assassination missions, tail-and-report missions, group missions, policing duties)
- Status, ranks and ratings (which will also affect available missions)
- In-game Galnet news feeds
- Modified HUD UI (also seen in action in a video from Insomnia 52 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrTlapgM-bE) although there's nothing much new in the rest of it)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on August 29, 2014, 11:50:54 PM
I'm particularly interested in the mention of group missions because hopefully that means they'll have to fix the broken/non-existent grouping system.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on September 01, 2014, 10:52:51 PM
Witchspace Diaries Episode 6 (http://youtu.be/mR9xjmk8ZCo) is up. Just a short one, Mike tries out the can looting for starter cash idea and we have a chat about the Elite universe books and stuff.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on September 04, 2014, 09:27:27 PM
Read the review that made me buy Elite on C64 in 1985 (http://www.zzap64.co.uk/zzap1/elite.html)

Edit: And you can watch someone play through it based on the review above, with commentary. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy3Di3uu5yA)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on September 05, 2014, 04:54:32 AM
Quote
Even at £ 14.95 it's a must.

 :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on September 12, 2014, 12:32:01 PM
http://Today's newsletter (http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=cbbe7b15e6&e=df86b4df73) had a plan view of a lot of the ships including ones like the Asp Explorer that aren't currently in the game.

(http://elitedangerous.com/extra/newsletter_2014_09_12/ship_chart.jpg)

Lots of other tidbits too including a new video by Isinona and a pic of a Cobra Mk 3 with wireframe paintjob  :drill:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tmp on September 12, 2014, 05:24:32 PM
Lots of other tidbits too including a new video by Isinona and a pic of a Cobra Mk 3 with wireframe paintjob  :drill:
I didn't even realize that was supposed to be wireframe paintjob because it didn't have pixels the size of a house :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on September 12, 2014, 10:41:01 PM
The wireframe paintjob is  :awesome_for_real:. Glad they've finally confirmed multiple ship ownership too. Now they really need to start hurrying up and get more stuff out :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on September 13, 2014, 05:22:03 AM
The first Imperial ship inner view  :awesome_for_real:


(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Imperial%20Gutamaya%20peek_of_the_week_50%201200.jpg)


This is probably not the same ship, but another example of the new Imperial style.

(http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130720191055/elite-dangerous/images/0/01/Empire_Courier.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: NiX on September 13, 2014, 11:11:23 AM
The first Imperial ship inner view  :awesome_for_real:

Does the first image imply there will be multi-pilot ships? Haven't been keeping up with the game and I know Star Citizen was going to do that some year.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on September 13, 2014, 11:54:00 AM
Honestly, they haven't said much about multi pilot so I would like to stick to reality and say no there won't. They said there will be "walking in ships" in the first expansion after launch, you will be able to stand up and roam around. But multi-pilot is probably not gonna be there for a long time if ever. Although, they have hinted to NPCs plenty of time so that's what the other seats could be for.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on September 13, 2014, 01:29:10 PM
What Falc said. There's a proposal about crews here (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8258) but it mainly discusses NPC crews that you can hire for some of the larger ships and nothing about other players taking those roles.  I have a feeling - but can't find source - that they're not really in favour of it because Elite is about the player as individual Pilots in command of their own ship(s) and that players crewing for someone else takes away from that.  But things may change - lots of people like the idea of it.

Personally I don't - I remember doing it in SWG and it was horrendous.  Main problem is that if you're in a turret, for example, you've got to rely on the player flying the ship to fly level otherwise you're moving all over the place and can't hit a damn thing.  Wasn't a fan.  Flying together in a small squadron/fleet, however, does appeal.

Falc - where did that first picture of the Imperial cockpit come from? Haven't seen it before and it's great.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on September 13, 2014, 01:31:07 PM
It's on Reddit as "peek of the week", which is not the one from the newsletter but usually the original stuff they publish on the "backers only forum" and that the backers eagerly and isntantly share with the rest of the community.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on September 14, 2014, 12:54:20 AM
The multi-player ship does sound like a great idea but really, really hard to implement well, both from a gameplay perspective and technically.

The Imperial ship cockpit looks like a stormtrooper helmet turned inside-out and filled with lights. I love it  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on September 14, 2014, 06:02:24 AM
I would be more than satisfied with an npc crew.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on September 14, 2014, 07:24:41 AM
The controls look like the turrets from Portal


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on September 17, 2014, 02:11:58 PM
Elite Dangerous is SuperWide Screen, 21:9 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAjrQaFAR2w) 

:awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on September 18, 2014, 01:24:43 AM
Elite Dangerous is SuperWide Screen, 21:9 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAjrQaFAR2w) 

:awesome_for_real:

 :drill:

Apparently his specs are:

An Asus PB298Q display at 2560x1080
i5 2500k
GTX780 SC
8gb RAM

Some thoughts:

1. That works really well for a Lakon-9 but I'd like to see what it looks in a Sidey or Viper?
2. I need a bigger monitor/multiple displays.
3. Love the fact that a lot of ED videos are peaceful sight-seeing affairs and have chilled out soundtracks (see also The Vonarburg Co-Operative (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2gPUEPPGuM&list=UUoVFn8UmqYi2yNfULgOoE3Q), Coriolis Spaceport (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlmAvpCN2Ik&list=UUD-VG4G_s--NKxbYwtlRoDw) and Neon Raven's stuff).  I think it says a lot about the type of game this is.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on September 18, 2014, 05:40:41 AM
I run in 2560x1440, but I need a new vid card. I have to run in a 1080p window for recording (which will be happening soon, honest. Holiday, work & illnesses have conspired against us these last few weeks), because framerate etc.

The sightseeing aspect of E:D is great but with the small number of systems currently available in beta it gets old fast. This is turning out to be the big downside to early access for me - I'm champing at the bit for more to be released.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on September 18, 2014, 08:28:45 AM
I haven't seen much of the game at all beyond about 6 or 7 systems and have hardly played in the last couple of weeks.  No reflection of the game - just not getting too involved at this point. 

Looking forward to new vid btw.  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on September 18, 2014, 08:55:36 AM
Curious...

(http://elitedangerous.com/extra/pick_of_the_week/peek_of_the_week_51.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sky on September 18, 2014, 09:01:22 AM
I'd be so much more interested if it were private server or single player.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Nebu on September 18, 2014, 09:11:12 AM
I'd be so much more interested if it were private server or single player.

I thought it was with the option for MMO play.

Am I wrong?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on September 18, 2014, 09:54:11 AM
You are not wrong. This game can be played 100% offline or/and single player.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on September 18, 2014, 10:47:30 AM
You are not wrong. This game can be played 100% offline or/and single player.

This. And more, you can play it online with *only* your friends and the NPCs, effectively private server.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sky on September 18, 2014, 01:44:42 PM
Oh, in that case....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on September 19, 2014, 09:12:39 AM
Newsletter #41 (http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=e676783725&e=16557db0c1) is out, and it's a good'un.

  • Beta 2 release date 30th Sept
  • Pilot combat ratings and system/faction reputations
  • Another 100 ly radius to available map = 500 more systems
  • New ship, Asp Explorer
  • New ship modules - drives, sensors, shields, life support, etc
  • New weapons (inc. mine launcher)
  • Better ship visibility in supercruise
  • System maps
  • New station type (Ocellus) and Outposts
  • SLI/Crossfire support

I'm still hoping for better (any) grouping mechanics, but no word on that.

Also, that wireframe Cobra skin is £10, which strikes me as far too much, and taking the piss somewhat.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on September 19, 2014, 09:27:16 AM
Also, that wireframe Cobra skin is £10, which strikes me as far too much, and taking the piss somewhat.

I concur. I would have bought it for a few quid but a tenner? I don't think so.

Still, will be interesting to see what "surprises" come out over the next few days.  May be worth logging in tomorrow to see if the event system works as promised given the Galnet stuff about Liquor embargos  :awesome_for_real:  And Beta 2 makes it seem more like a full game too - how long before the first one to get to Elite before release?



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on September 20, 2014, 09:14:44 AM
Witchspace Diaries ep.7 - Speed Parking (http://youtu.be/n5KyQUMhstA). Mike & I decided to show everyone how awesome we are at flying. Yeah...  :awesome_for_real:

Also, we've just recorded some footage of Mike flying a Cobra with the wireframe skin. It's not worth a tenner :(


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on September 20, 2014, 11:23:22 AM
Just as an aside, you can now get the original BBC-B version of Elite for Beeb Emulator either via the Elite: Dangerous store or via Ian Bell's website.  Ian Bell is also making available a PC Version of Christian Pinder's Elite The New Kind. His website here (http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/thirty/index.htm).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on September 22, 2014, 10:24:24 AM
Also, that wireframe Cobra skin is £10, which strikes me as far too much, and taking the piss somewhat.

I concur. I would have bought it for a few quid but a tenner? I don't think so.

Still, will be interesting to see what "surprises" come out over the next few days.  May be worth logging in tomorrow to see if the event system works as promised given the Galnet stuff about Liquor embargos  :awesome_for_real:  And Beta 2 makes it seem more like a full game too - how long before the first one to get to Elite before release?



Just had a newsletter through that says 50% price drop


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on September 22, 2014, 11:10:14 AM
Just had a newsletter through that says 50% price drop

That's a price drop on the in-game cost of a Cobra ship, not the price of the skin though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on September 23, 2014, 01:26:36 AM
Just had a newsletter through that says 50% price drop

That's a price drop on the in-game cost of a Cobra ship, not the price of the skin though.

Ah sorry my bad, the newsletter had a pic of the cobra with the wireframe on it


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yoru on September 26, 2014, 07:41:22 AM
So I've been keeping a half-eye on this for a while now, and I heard it's basically in reasonably-complete open-ish beta. Then I checked the website and saw it was 60 GBP for beta, whereas the regular version is 40 GBP.

Is this one of those early-access deals where the game gets cheaper towards launch, or does the 40GBP version also come with access? Also, is the damn thing actually any good at the moment?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on September 26, 2014, 08:25:01 AM
The thing is damn good but nowhere near to have all the promised things yet. While I love it to death, I think the more anyone can wait the better. Every phase of beta you manage to skip, the more stuff you'll get when you get in withouth the slightest hint of "burnout", and the more bugs you will dodge. Again, chances are this will be m GOTY 2015, but I still tell people to wait.

As far as prices go, the 60£ one gives you beta access and some bonus stuff. The 40£ is and will be the price at release, so if you get that it's the same as buying it on day 1. No beta, no bonus stuff.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yoru on September 26, 2014, 08:32:43 AM
Good to know. I'll keep this on the sidelines for now. Civ:BE is coming out in a few weeks anyway.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on September 26, 2014, 10:56:03 PM
Check in on it again next week, the next beta phase starts on Tuesday and will hopefully give a much better idea of what the final game (still definitely claimed to be releasing in 2014) will be like.

I agree completely with Falconeer though, it's really good at the moment but well worth holding out for actual release unless you have a burning itch that can't be scratched. That sounded wrong.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on September 28, 2014, 11:43:00 PM
WSD episode 8 (http://youtu.be/5pDIawDJd5c) online. We had a look at the iBootis fleet and jabbered more about Beta 2. And I inadvertently annoy an Anaconda.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on September 29, 2014, 11:31:22 PM
Quick reminder, if you're playing this then don't forget to back up your control configs before the patch today.

You want to backup the files "Custom.binds" and "StartPreset.start" from the hidden folder at [C]:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Bindings\


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 01, 2014, 12:42:43 AM
New stuff from Beta 2 which launched yesterday.

Quote
NEW FEATURES/CONTENT

- Playable area expanded (a capsule 100ly long and 30ly wide @500 systems)
- Can scan celestial bodies
- Can sell explorer data
- Can buy body data
- Asp added
- Reputation affects mission availability
- Designer created content can be used in newsfeeds
- When an AI hyperspaces it informs the hyperdrive component where it's going, which stores this information in the wake object in the hyperspace cloud. If the player scans the cloud and then hyperspaces, the wake information is recorded
- Ocellus starport type added
- In system map added
- Scan data reveals objects in the in system map
- News feed support added to station services
- Outfitting system upgrade
- ECM systems added
- Cargo hatch disrupter devices added
- Mine launcher added
- Proximity mines added
- Added metal type asteroids
- Added ice type asteroids
- Various outpost types added
- Added repair wear and tear in repair modules menu
- Added SLI/X-Fire support
- Added backers' NPC names
- Ship wear and tear added
- AI pilots now have rankings
- Drives and shields now affected by ship's mass
- Single player scenarios adapted to tutorials
- Add docking tutorial
- Major update to how system contents are generated
- Extensive music system updates
- System economy/meta data dynaically generated for the non-authored systems


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on October 02, 2014, 10:18:08 AM
No arguing that there's a few issues with Beta 2 - managed to log on last night and saw Apoc online but kept getting dropped by the server.  Still managed to bod around a bit and check out some new outposts and run a mission or two.

However, this video by Scott Manley has put a smile on my face. Background: apparently in an earlier video, he was complaining that the new system maps in the game didn't show correct data - he had looked at one real system and said that it should properly contain 3 exo planets but the map doesn't show them.  So someone said "why don't you go exploring?"

So he did. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_mSlz6tpmc)

Obvious results but I'm really liking this feature of the game.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 02, 2014, 02:28:44 PM
Heh, yeah, good video that :)

Unfortunately pretty much *nothing* is working at the moment. Approx 50% of people can't play at all due to login problems, disconnects, graphical glitches etc. If you do get in then it's very, very broken most of the time. Very frequent disconnects still going on, there's no Bulletin Board missions at all, the Commodities Markets are completely fubared with either no stock anywhere or repeated failures to buy items.

Changing the flight model to remove the Flight Assist Off advantages has turned the dogfighting into pointless jousting where the more agile ship always wins, which is a crying shame since it was very satisfying before to be able to use skill to beat the odds. Now the only thing that matters is which ship turns faster. If you're in a big ship vs a small ship just run away (if you can), there is no way you can land hits otherwise. At least that was the case this morning, not had any fights since then because it's too unstable.

Oh and the trading route information on the Galaxy Map is useless, it simply doesn't update in a useful time frame. And since they've disabled 3rd party data scraping tools trading is now a complete gamble.

On the positive side you can make decent money with combat now, just get a Viper and go farm NPC's for bounties.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 02, 2014, 11:47:10 PM
Game is still fubared for me in all sorts of ways, but I did get a very high res (10240x5760) snap of a station and a binary star:



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Engels on October 03, 2014, 09:05:15 AM
Between this and the 'window-dressing-ware' that is Star Citizen, what are space adventurers to do? Go back to being podded in Eve I guess.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Nebu on October 03, 2014, 09:09:00 AM
Between this and the 'window-dressing-ware' that is Star Citizen, what are space adventurers to do? Go back to being podded in Eve I guess.

Is Starpoint Gemini 2 any good?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Engels on October 03, 2014, 09:16:42 AM
I actually watched a clip or two on Starpoint Gemini, and although the graphics look cartoony, and the interface not particularly spectacular, it does look like most of its shit is together.

The review I watched was an early one, so its probably changed since then. Here's a newer one, that is clearly in the middle of a series of videos, but the benefit to this is that it goes right into the detailed mechanics involved in everyday playing, which I find far more useful in an evaluation of a game than some 'intro' video that's more of a showcase than a realistic presentation of what its like to play a game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGRArHomPQc

I seriously considered giving this a whirl but it also looked like a significant time investment and learning curve. I'm starting to think I'm too old for games that require learning an entire detailed gaming system, be it Arch Age or some space sim that has tons of fiddly bits. I'm getting old, I think.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on October 03, 2014, 09:51:09 AM
Only a couple of days into Beta 2 and they appear to have announced October 28th as the date of Beta 3 (http://www.vg247.com/2014/10/03/beta-3-for-elite-dangerous-has-been-dated-beta-2-now-available/). (via the ED Twitter feed so presumably legit)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 04, 2014, 01:28:40 AM
4 patches in 2 days now. Most of my problems seem to be fixed. Very impressed with the speed of bug fixing going on here.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 07, 2014, 03:05:14 AM
*WARNING* bloody great wall of text ahead, sorry.

Since the launch of Beta 2 and the subsequent four patches in 24 hours I've had a chance to play this some more, putting in something like 12-16 hours over the last week, so I thought I'd give some more detailed impressions of the state of the game at the moment.

I'm going to start by saying that I'm very concerned about the development and the game as a whole and that I have a growing feeling that it's going to end up being a niche product and a commercial failure unless major changes are made in the next 3 months.

Beta 2 brought some new systems and updated a lot of the existing game. Ships and ship outfitting are currently in a pretty good place. There's 9 ships available and there's a slew of options for outfitting them which have created a very flexible and somewhat deep meta-game. You can upgrade individual components, e.g. shields, drives, weapons, cargo bays etc., and several of the ships can be fitted for different roles quite successfully. The pinnacle of this idea seems to be the new ship, the Asp, which is incredibly versatile due to the way it's fitting slots are laid out. The only real downside to this at the moment is that there is no in-game information about what modules are available and most stations only sell a very limited subset of the total. This means that there is a lot of guesswork involved or reliance on out-of-game websites and player-gathered information. Also (and this is a recurring theme) the UI for ship fitting is terrible - clunky, slow, uninformative & unintuitive.

Combat is a mixed bag. Obviously ship choice and fitting play a major part in your combat effectiveness but your real life hardware is also, IMO, very important. Mouse control is better than many other similar games but I still think someone using a HOTAS and head tracking is going to be at a major advantage over someone without those tools. The combat is also very poorly balanced - this really isn't EVE-Online - with major discrepancies between weapon types. Currently there's no reason to play in Open multiplayer unless you're a pvp'er, and destroying unsuspecting players in weaker ships in 3-4 seconds is the de facto pvp combat exercise.

Combat vs the AI is also a mixed bag. It's quite satisfying in terms of dog fighting but the AI ships clearly don't follow any of the same restrictions to ship actions as players do, i.e. heat management, time to Frameshift (jump drive) out of combat, etc. The AI still has a nasty habit of suicide ramming you too, a tactic that always results in the instant destruction of your ship regardless of the size of the NPC vessel. They have also completely nerfed the "Flight Assist Off" flight control method in Beta 2, so the interesting semi-Newtonian physics that YouTubers like Isinona have shown off is completely impossible now.

Trading has also been greatly reduced in effectiveness now, with the markets being completely flat and profits by pure trading very slow to come by. The general (unconfirmed) consensus is that this was done to encourage backers to more fully test out combat, exploration and missions. And missions are now the only sensible way to make money without engaging in combat. You can pick up courier missions from stations that involve being given a quantity of goods which you have to deliver to a different station in a set time limit. This is profitable but tedious and can easily be gamed by abandoning missions then selling the cargo (that doesn't get taken away from you) on the Black Market or by finding a system with two stations in and repeatedly running easy courier missions between the two stations. The incidence of interdictions (being interrupted mid-Frameshift by possibly hostile NPCs) has dropped almost to zero since Beta 2.02 so there is no risk whatsoever in continually running these courier missions.

In addition to the poor profit rate of pure trading the interface, again, is utterly terrible. You cannot see commodity prices until you dock at a station. The only information you have is the Galaxy Map which can be configured (clumsily and laboriously) to show the supposed flow of trade goods between systems, and this interface is completely separated from the actual commodity market. It's also very often totally wrong and relying on it will leave you broke and with unsellable cargo very quickly. To compound the problem the devs have disabled all 3rd party data collection tools so only manually entered external databases are possible. The limitations of these are so great that they're also useless, so trading in this beta incarnation is really not part of the game any more.

Missions in general are, again, a very mixed bag. The aforementioned courier missions mostly work but can be easily gamed for mindless profit. There is no penalty for abandoning or failing missions so if the mission you want isn't available you can just accept every mission on the board and abandon them to force the game to generate new ones. There are "fetch & return" missions that ask you to go and find x tons of y commodity but due to the short time limits and the utter lack of useful trading information these are more or less impossible unless you already have the required commodity in your hold. There's even pirate fetch & return missions that want a specific commodity but it must be stolen so you have to find and scan an NPC ship carrying the cargo you want and then force it to drop it. I suspect that nobody does these missions.

Combat missions exist and these can be quite profitable but they suffer from a lack of information. You can be tasked with killing a certain named NPC but there is no indication of how to find them. After hunting on the forums (never a good thing to require players to do IMO) it turns out that you just have to repeatedly enter "Unidentified Signal Sources" while in Frameshift until you get lucky and find the correct NPC. There's also no indication of what kind of ship your target will be flying so you have to learn (again from the forums or simple trial and error) what size mission reward means which kind of target ship. E.g. 140k credit reward means an Anaconda. Bring a friend. Oh wait, you can't. There is no grouping system and no way to do missions, or anything for that matter, any way except solo. The only combat missions that are worth doing really are "Kill x civilians" ones. For these you have to fit a Kill Warrant Scanner (not explained in the mission details), go to a Nav Beacon (hard to find and not explained), scan NPCs until you find ones that have bounties and kill them. However after some time doing this System Authority ships will jump in and join the fight. These guys are flying assholes. They kill-steal all the time since only the shot that blows the ship up counts for bounties. They will "accidentally" shoot you all the time but if you accidentally hit them even once while they're trying to steal your kills they all instantly turn hostile and blow you to shit. Very frustrating.

Exploration is possible, you start with a basic scanner and can gather data on systems that you can then sell. However there's no documentation on how this works, it's currently incredibly buggy (doing detailed scans, for instance, reduces the value of your collected data) and it's very boring. Clearly this is a system that's in need of a massive amount of work since the current implementation is, at best, a minimally functional placeholder.

There's a reputation system that was introduced in Beta 2, that supposedly gives you better prices and mission rewards etc. with NPC factions. However it's completely opaque to the player. There is no indication of your standing with factions, nor is there even any information about what the factions are! After running courier missions in one system for a couple of hours I did seem to be getting higher rewards sometimes, which may have been due to reputations but I had no way of knowing for sure. Again, a system that feels pointless and unfinished. At least the reputation system doesn't have a terrible UI, because it has no UI at all.

What I haven't mentioned yet is the thing that you spend the vast majority of your time in-game doing: traveling. Your Frameshift Drive (FSD) is used to jump between systems providing you have enough range and enough fuel, and this is accomplished with an animated loading screen that looks like a hyperspace tunnel. It's not very engaging. Your travel in-system is also accomplished with your FSD but it's (suspected to be) an Alcubierre drive that compresses space around your ship. What this means in practice is that it's a bit like time acceleration but just means you move very fast (up to 200x light speed although you can glitch to much higher speeds, even though it's pointless to do so). You accelerate and decelerate quite slowly, it's easy to overshoot your target and the scenery whilst doing so is pretty much the same every time. The novelty of seeing planets and stars whip by wears off fast and it becomes a serious chore. It's a very unimaginative solution to the "real-sized solar systems in a multiplayer game" problem and I suspect it's going to kill most people's enjoyment very quickly. There's no auto-pilot, there's no route plotting, there's no interesting effects and every in-system journey takes several minutes, more in the larger systems. I found a system yesterday with the station 30,000 light seconds away from the jump-in point, which took me over 15 minutes to traverse. Not interesting.

I've complained a lot about the individual systems that currently make up the game but what about the larger framework? Is there an interesting story, interesting progression, a sense of purpose to it all? In short, no. In fact, in long, no. There's nothing. The only purpose to trading or combat is to make money to buy ships and components so that you can trade more, further and kill bigger things faster. There was an attempt at an in-game event at the end of the previous beta phase that involved a political, economic and military stand-off and eventual conflict between an independent, communist system and a large, capitalist Federation. However unless you frequented the out-of-game forums regularly you would have been completely unaware of this event. The fleets massing were all at planets far away from the starports. The trading and combat missions generated as part of this event looked exactly the same as all the other ones with equally uninformative description text. It was possibly the least interesting in-game event I've ever witnessed.

So why is this all like this? I believe there's two factors at work making E:D what it is. Firstly the game has always been openly stated to be "the game we (the devs) wanted to play". Given that the main creative force behind this is David Braben, who's career has rested on the original Elite from 1988, it simply feels like a recreating of that 30 year old game with a modern graphics engine. The problem there is that a lot more than the hardware has moved on in those three decades. Simply grinding ranks, credits and kills is the preserve of MMORPGs now, a genre deader than tank-tops. If E:D doesn't add an actual game on top of those 30 year old mechanics then there will be nothing here for anyone except the neckbeardiest of neckbeards.

Secondly the closed, paid beta method of development results in a testing population made up almost exclusively of fans. The large majority of backers up until now have been older players who are nostalgic for their youths and the countless hours spent chasing Elite status on a BBC Micro or ZX Spectrum. This results in a huge fanboi factor on forums. The official forum population repeatedly congratulate themselves on how special they are compared to other game forumites and how tolerant they are of developer mistakes, decisions, designs etc. What this really means is that poor design is rarely called out and those that do call it out are shouted down with cries of "It's beta!!!" and "This isn't the right game for you!". Unless the developers get their heads out of that collective arsehole they're going to release a steaming turd that all the testers have convinced them is made of gold.

I haven't even mentioned that fact that Beta 3 has already been dated for Oct 28th and release is still confirmed for 2014 and what kind of development hell that could mean given how many things are broken and the huge number of announced systems yet to be implemented at all, but I've already gone on for far, far too long so I'll stop there.

TL;DR: I strongly feel that Elite: Dangerous is NOT worth paying extra for beta access for right now, and that it's very likely not going to be the second coming of Space Jesus that everyone wants it to be. There's a lot going for it but it needs major, major work yet to become a good game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on October 07, 2014, 03:53:03 AM
Well, that fucked my morning.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Nebu on October 07, 2014, 05:46:37 AM
Sad but unsurprising. 

 :heartbreak:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on October 07, 2014, 06:50:43 AM
Well the game is pretty much what I expected and - discounting all of the tweaks to push beta testers to test certain systems - also pretty much what I wanted from E:D so I'm not disappointed. It was always pitched as a spiritual successor to the original Elite and it is that. That it is nothing more than that might be disappointing to some but Braben never promised E:D to be more than it currently is. In fact if Frontier Developments closed shop tomorrow I won't be disappointed because I'm quite happy with how the game turned out, even in its still unfinished state.

I honestly don't even know how it could be more unless they'd run it like an MMO and constantly pushed out new content. Quite frankly I like Braben's approach to making and marketing the game. He didn't over promise, he delivered what he has promised so far and while that might not be at all what some people wanted and while that might mean that E:D will be a niche game for enthusiasts at least the people into Elite got the game Braben promised them and Frontier developments likely won't lose money over the endeavor.

Star Citizen backers on the other hand are the ones waiting for Space Jesus's second coming and will be bitterly disappointed. I don't think most E:D backers will though.

I wonder how the people waiting for no man's sky will feel though since it will pretty much have the same problem with being vast but probably not having the content to fill thze vastness in a meaningful way.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 07, 2014, 08:05:40 AM
Well, here's (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=19639) a list of things that have been stated to be included in beta at some point. Full release is 3 months away, at most. I do not think all of the promises that have been made are going to be kept.

I honestly want to be wrong about this game. I'm invested in it. I spent £100 for premium beta access, I bought a HOTAS system and TrackIR for it. I co-host a YouTube channel dedicated to it! If it ends up being a game that only keeps a tiny niche pleased beyond a month then I'm going to be very, very disappointed.

I also think that failing to engage a larger market will damage even further the idea of crowd-funded development. I think Star Citizen is a very different kettle of fish and I don't feel comfortable making direct comparisons, having had no experience of SC myself.

There is a ray of hope that I can see at the moment, and that is that since Beta 2 the official forums have started to see a much larger number of posts from people giving critical feedback, as opposed to the sea of adulation that has been the mainstay for a long, long time now. I don't think it's necessarily too late for some of the worst design decision to be rectified, but I do think it's too late for that to happen *and* for that feature list I posted to be met.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on October 07, 2014, 11:11:25 AM
I just don't agree with you Apocrypha. I've got about 50 hours now into beta 2, and I love all of it. You are accurate with a couple of your issues, but I honestly  don't care about having to figure out game systems or mechanics for myself instead of being spoon fed everything.

Touching on the "nerfing" of assist off flight mechanics, the only thing they nerfed is being able to stay at max boosted speed indefinitely. You can still boost in any direction you can trust in and also rotate the ship traveling at any angle so pretty much nothing changed other than the permanent max boost speed.

Addressing your issue with the in game trading system, trading still can make a ton of money, which I have, you just have to explore some more first. Also when you are looking at the maps there is an option to get into the solar system level that will tell you exactly which market items they import and export. I haven't arrived with a hold full of loss inventory even once yet. Using the colored galaxy map over view to see trade routes is just a rough idea of what category of goods comes in and out of the system.

Normally, I agree with many of your opinions about games, but this time I really see a much different game than you appear to be seeing. I wonder if this is going to be one of those polarizing games, where either it is perfect for you or you hate it with no middle ground.

Edit: I just want to clarify, this is my first Elite game. I never played any other version at all, so no nostalgia glasses or anything here. I just wanted a space game where I sat in the cockpit of a space ship where it flies with twitch controls and I get to choose what ever I feel like doing when I fire it up.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 07, 2014, 12:28:51 PM
Apologies for SirBrucing this but I want to address each issue separately rather than make another Wall'o'Text :)

I just don't agree with you Apocrypha. I've got about 50 hours now into beta 2, and I love all of it. You are accurate with a couple of your issues, but I honestly  don't care about having to figure out game systems or mechanics for myself instead of being spoon fed everything.

I really don't want to be spoonfed, not what I'm asking for, and I know a lot of the current mechanics are placeholders and WIP's, but there's so many things that really should have some in-game information supply. For me it's very much a case of "why does every game have to reinvent the wheel"? I find the interface design choices mostly bad, it's a bugbear of mine, UI design is an established discipline and they have ignored 40 years of work in interfaces. They require 4 button presses when 1 would do, they separate information that should be kept together, things are opaque for no other reason than bad design. IMO.


Touching on the "nerfing" of assist off flight mechanics, the only thing they nerfed is being able to stay at max boosted speed indefinitely. You can still boost in any direction you can trust in and also rotate the ship traveling at any angle so pretty much nothing changed other than the permanent max boost speed.

Are you sure you can boost in any direction? It really feels to me like you only boost forwards, FA on or off. I'll test more. The perma max boost speed isn't the issue, it's the slowdown to under 100m/s when going in any direction other than forwards that kills the combat maneuvering for me. I find it incredibly immersion breaking since there is no good physical reason that should be the case. I remember I-War clearly, the combat in that was fantastic, and the FA-off mode in E:D pre beta 2 was leaning in that direction. I've found the dog fighting far less interesting and fun since.

Addressing your issue with the in game trading system, trading still can make a ton of money, which I have, you just have to explore some more first. Also when you are looking at the maps there is an option to get into the solar system level that will tell you exactly which market items they import and export. I haven't arrived with a hold full of loss inventory even once yet. Using the colored galaxy map over view to see trade routes is just a rough idea of what category of goods comes in and out of the system.

Actually you can use the galaxy map to show specific goods within the categories. Expand the trade category and untick the ones you don't want to see. Needs an "untick/tick all" option, of course, not to mention a ton of other tweaks, but the data is there. It's just often wrong. Maybe it's correct in the original core systems, I don't know, I moved out to the far end of the "pill" as soon as I could and have been exploring the furthest 1/3rd of the available systems since then. And as I said, I am well aware that the trading has been reduced in efficiency specifically to test other aspects, not something I have a problem with. I have a problem with the poor information available to the trader. Try using the galaxy map trading info to reliably source goods for "Fetch & return" type missions. It's very unreliable.

Normally, I agree with many of your opinions about games, but this time I really see a much different game than you appear to be seeing. I wonder if this is going to be one of those polarizing games, where either it is perfect for you or you hate it with no middle ground.

No doubt, we all have our own opinions, I know many people don't agree with my views on several of these systems. However it feels to me that many of the design choices being made are reducing player choice greatly. This actually feels like a very limited game to me, despite the vast size of the galaxy that will be available. 400 billion systems are like 1000 channels on your cable TV if they're all the same.

There's definitely a lot of people that will find things they like about E:D - and I like lots of things about it, it's entirely possible to like something and still be critical of it - but I feel that some attempt to reduce the repetitious nature of most of the gameplay would end up creating a game that had a lot more longevity for a lot more people.

Edit: I just want to clarify, this is my first Elite game. I never played any other version at all, so no nostalgia glasses or anything here. I just wanted a space game where I sat in the cockpit of a space ship where it flies with twitch controls and I get to choose what ever I feel like doing when I fire it up.

I think the crux of my complaint is that we're soon going to find that we can't do whatever we feel like doing. We can grind bounties, we can grind missions or we can grind trading, with no actual game structuring it all. A sandbox is only any fun if you can actually build sand castles and E:D only lets you buy fancier buckets & spades.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on October 07, 2014, 04:21:45 PM
*WARNING* bloody great wall of text ahead, sorry.

Psycho!  :why_so_serious:

There's too much in your post to really address I'm afraid Apoc, so I'm mostly going to ignore it. I can't be arsed to go through point by point with a "Yes but..." - not because I can't but because it'll be tedious for everyone involved. But the tl;dr is that it is still in beta and the devs have already said that a lot of the systems are WIP including things like the station and outfitting interface.  It's not that I don't agree with you about some of it - that interface is truly terrible - but I find it difficult to complain about something that is, by Frontier's own admission, highly likely to change and evolve. Also I'm probably more optimistic and less invested than you might be (and no, I don't think they'll release this side of January but I find myself not really caring about that.) Similarly, I think complaining about trading right now is like pissing into the wind. You know what it can be like given how easy trading was in Beta1 so why not wait until it's pretty much final before whining? It'll be better for your blood pressure.

I'm also curious about what more you want out of the game? I get your concerns about it ending up being a similar grind to Elite '84 and lacking interesting progression - those same concerns are pretty much the reason I didn't sign up for the kickstarter because hey, it's Elite and that's what it is - but what is exactly you want to see? You say that you feel it needs more "game structuring" but that's not really very meaningful. So specifically, and at the risk of another wall of text, what systems would provide that structure for you?

Anyway, pessimism and critique aside, I went on a trip tonight. First stop, Rakapila:

(http://i.imgur.com/gHi3tjQ.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/gHi3tjQ.jpg)

That shot was taken from ~3LS away which is pretty much where your hyperspace exit brings you.  By comparison, ~3LS is the point where you perform an emergency stop near Aulin if you don't break or maneuver when you come out of hyperspace:

(http://i.imgur.com/2fYBB3Z.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/2fYBB3Z.jpg)

But if you travel 100LS away from Aulin, it looks like this:

(http://i.imgur.com/YbqRPPg.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/YbqRPPg.jpg)

However, if you were traveling to Arcturus, the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere and part of the Bootes constellation, this is what you'd see if you were 100LS away:

(http://i.imgur.com/nxnM2Ni.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/nxnM2Ni.jpg)

And if you didn't slow down coming out of hyperspace and kept heading towards the star, your FSD would stick it's heels in at about 73LS:

(http://i.imgur.com/Yl4GMFG.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/Yl4GMFG.jpg)

Makes you feel like you're in a Danny Boyle movie!



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on October 07, 2014, 04:44:59 PM
Then I decided to go exploring. I had a scanner and I was going to find out how to use it!

(http://i.imgur.com/GrUiCzB.jpg)

Right, okay. That seems straightforward enough. Now, where to go? (I've spoilered the rest because a- lots of images and b- people may want to find some of these things for themselves. Fair warning etc.)


tl;dr - floating around, exploring an object that's in pitch black with nothing but your ship headlights is actually pretty cool. Also, I like the discovery mechanic for what it currently is.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 08, 2014, 03:01:50 AM
*WARNING* bloody great wall of text ahead, sorry.

Psycho!  :why_so_serious:

There's too much in your post to really address I'm afraid Apoc, so I'm mostly going to ignore it. I can't be arsed to go through point by point with a "Yes but..." - not because I can't but because it'll be tedious for everyone involved. But the tl;dr is that it is still in beta and the devs have already said that a lot of the systems are WIP including things like the station and outfitting interface.  It's not that I don't agree with you about some of it - that interface is truly terrible - but I find it difficult to complain about something that is, by Frontier's own admission, highly likely to change and evolve. Also I'm probably more optimistic and less invested than you might be (and no, I don't think they'll release this side of January but I find myself not really caring about that.) Similarly, I think complaining about trading right now is like pissing into the wind. You know what it can be like given how easy trading was in Beta1 so why not wait until it's pretty much final before whining? It'll be better for your blood pressure.

I'm also curious about what more you want out of the game? I get your concerns about it ending up being a similar grind to Elite '84 and lacking interesting progression - those same concerns are pretty much the reason I didn't sign up for the kickstarter because hey, it's Elite and that's what it is - but what is exactly you want to see? You say that you feel it needs more "game structuring" but that's not really very meaningful. So specifically, and at the risk of another wall of text, what systems would provide that structure for you?

OK first off I'm seeing this on the official forums all the time - any criticism is instantly characterised as "whining". How is that helpful? This is beta, we're beta testers, surely feedback is crucial? Look at what happens when games are developed without concerns being heard due to a sycophantic echo chamber of a playerbase - you get Wildstar and TESO. I am trying to be honest about how I feel about the game as it is right now.

The other thing that happens a lot on the official forums (and that none of you have done yet, which I'm grateful for) is that someone criticises or comments on an aspect of the game that they don't like, e.g. that they find FSD'ing boring, and are met with accusations that they want to "dumb it down!" and "make it like every other game!" or "turn it into Call of Duty in space!". Two people are sat in an office and one says "It's a bit cold in here, mind if I ask them to turn the heat up a bit?" and the second one shouts "OMG you're trying to roast us all to death, we don't want it at 200oC in here ffs!!". No, nope, I don't want it to be a 200oC CoD space clone, I'd just like it to be a bit bloody warmer in here. Hyperbole serves to shut debate down and we're back to the echo chamber.

And let's not fixate on the trading. Yes, it's much more difficult to make money at in the current beta build than in the previous, but I've already said why I think that is and I don't have a problem with that decision. I have problems with the mechanisms of trading as a whole and the interface and the flow of information provided to the player.

As to what I want, well, I want there to be an actual game, not just a few separate grinding mechanisms with no real purpose to them. I'd like the galaxy to feel alive, not dead & sterile as it is now. I'd like some variety to how stars, solar systems, planets, etc look. Sure, there's pink stars and white stars and big stars and binary stars, and brown planets and white planets and, er, that's about it, but after the first few times I saw them I started to find them very repetitive. After the 1000s of times we'll have to see these things in order to get to the bigger ships and higher ranks (which serve no purpose) I think I personally will be bored to tears with them.

I'd like some kind of feeling of persistence in the game universe somehow, beyond the numbers in my credit balance. I'd like to feel a part of the galaxy, not an outside observer simply squeezing cash out of it in only three possible ways. I'd like NPC interactions to be less brain-numbingly stupid and more believable. I'd like exploration to be about more than clicking a button near a star that looks the same as every other star and that you had to blindly frameshift for 20 minutes through featureless space to find.

I think your discovered outpost is a perfect example. It's cool that you found it and my first thought on seeing it was "Cool, nice find!". But then what? It does nothing, there's no interaction with it, there's no missions connected with it, you gain nor lose nothing from finding it. It's completely pointless, and while the first few times you find things like this it'll be cool, it'll just be boring the 100th time, possibly even the 10th time.

I'm posting huge posts about this because I care about it, I want it to be a better game than it's looking like it is and I can't say the things that I feel need to be said any shorter way. Sorry.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 08, 2014, 03:39:37 AM
I tend to agree with Apoc here.

One one side, I am absolutley in love with the original Elite(s) and they were nothing more than this, so a carbon copy with better graphics makes me happy no matter what.
On the other side, it's impossible not to hope for something more. There is so much potential at this point that it is impossible not to wish and dream they can add somethin gon the original Elite framework, instead of leaving it untouched save for the visuals and some supposed but hard to come by multiplayer.

The feature list of promised things is amazing and does a lot towards the goal of adding more, but there is no way lot of that stuff will see the light by the end of this year.
I am pretty sure the "Launch" date is complete bullshit and they have to stick with it due to their stock company nature and some tricks that are related to the shareholding market, but I will keep treating this game as an Early Access one that will not be considered complete or worth playing/spoilering for another year or two.

Yes, I love it. But I distinctly feel that the more I can force myself to wait, the more I'll get out of it. In that regard, while lots of your concerns are more than valid Apoc, I think it's safe to say you played the beta too much, which in my opinion as a gamer is never wise.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yoru on October 08, 2014, 04:54:01 AM
I think your discovered outpost is a perfect example. It's cool that you found it and my first thought on seeing it was "Cool, nice find!". But then what? It does nothing, there's no interaction with it, there's no missions connected with it, you gain nor lose nothing from finding it. It's completely pointless, and while the first few times you find things like this it'll be cool, it'll just be boring the 100th time, possibly even the 10th time.

Eh, it's a video game. Everything about it is entirely pointless from a sidereal perspective. I'm don't think they need to attach rewards to absolutely every part of the game. Those with gamier inclinations, those who want to minmax or achievement-hunt, will go after those aspects which have hard rewards attached; others who want soft rewards (e.g. to see neat things) will enjoy small touches like these abandoned stations.

But yes, it is a content challenge to make thousands of unique oddities for people to find. I think we're currently in a phase where "procedural content" has become trendy and, as a consequence, overutilized. Procedural content will churn out a ton of very similar things, things that trend towards whatever averages are dictated by its algorithms. As your personal sample of the game-world grows, the novelty of each individual experience regresses towards the mean.

"XX billion stars" is one of those things which sounds fantastic as box copy, but the actual player experience is a field of endlessly repetitive situations.

I think the biggest problem the game suffers right now is that the UI and systems are designed for a single-player experience in a non-networked world. It oddly assumes that the player is in an isolated bubble. It's basically as if they've learned nothing from the last 25 years of MMOs: the instant any information is available to any player, it will be available to all players. Their trade system, in particular, is annoying as it assumes that you'll do the Elite '84 thing of flying to various systems and taking notes; it assumes you'll build your knowledge-base yourself, but doesn't even provide internal tools for doing so. (Seriously, why can't I store prices for nearby stations which I've visited and have my ship's computer compare them with the local market? Shit, let me buy and sell that data just like I can buy and sell exploration data.)

No matter what they do, players will find a way to extract that market data and share it amongst themselves. Sharing information is a core purpose of the internet, after all. The UI and system needs to be redesigned to assume shared player knowledge at all times (which approaches perfect knowledge asymptotically).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 08, 2014, 05:03:23 AM
I think the biggest problem the game suffers right now is that the UI and systems are designed for a single-player experience in a non-networked world.

I agree with everything else, but I think the interface is specifically designed to allow console porting at a later date. Pre-consolitis if you will.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yoru on October 08, 2014, 05:13:49 AM
Possibly. Or just a bad UX designer. I'd have a hard time believing "you can't see if any modules are available without going to each class individually" is pre-consolitis so much as "this isn't done".

They may also be trying to make a UI that works nicely with K/M, gamepads and flightsticks all at the same time. (And falling down, because that shit hard, yo.)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on October 08, 2014, 05:47:56 AM
I think your discovered outpost is a perfect example. It's cool that you found it and my first thought on seeing it was "Cool, nice find!". But then what? It does nothing, there's no interaction with it, there's no missions connected with it, you gain nor lose nothing from finding it. It's completely pointless, and while the first few times you find things like this it'll be cool, it'll just be boring the 100th time, possibly even the 10th time.

I have the same problem with this I had with finding them in Eve - you ought to be able to dock/EVA and claim either them or get salvage from them or something rather than them just being eye candy

While I'm in the beta I've only played for about 30 mins due to current RL demands - once someone discovers stuff like this (and sells the info) does it then get updated as 'known' for everyone or can everyone 'discover' the same stuff?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on October 08, 2014, 06:36:10 AM
I think the biggest problem the game suffers right now is that the UI and systems are designed for a single-player experience in a non-networked world. It oddly assumes that the player is in an isolated bubble. It's basically as if they've learned nothing from the last 25 years of MMOs: the instant any information is available to any player, it will be available to all players. Their trade system, in particular, is annoying as it assumes that you'll do the Elite '84 thing of flying to various systems and taking notes; it assumes you'll build your knowledge-base yourself, but doesn't even provide internal tools for doing so. (Seriously, why can't I store prices for nearby stations which I've visited and have my ship's computer compare them with the local market? Shit, let me buy and sell that data just like I can buy and sell exploration data.)

The UI - especially for the outfitting screen is "very much a WIP" as per their lead designer. Hell, even the items are currently wrong and don't go in the right slot and some are just fucked up entirely. They know that. They've admitted that on the forums. It's a WIP. How many of the other screens are WIP is anybodys guess - the trading screen? The Bulletin Board screen? The maps? Presumably most of them given the amount of information that is missing (simple things like "tell me the stats of the ships I can buy...")

But this is part of the problem and maybe part of the cause of frustration that Apoc is feeling perhaps? There are a lot of things that are meant to be a WIP but it's an easy claim to make by other forum goers without any need for substantiation.  The Design Archives not-yet-implemented features list give an outline for stuff still to be implemented in the game but we don't know for sure what some of that is or what form it's going to take. Apoc is absolutely right about that Outpost I visited - it was cool at first until you realise that there's nothing different about it. It's not even abandoned - you can dock at it and access exactly the same services as you can at any other outpost. There is nothing significant about it at all - except that I managed to arrive at it when it was on the dark side and it looked totally deserted. Cool story, bro!

What I'd like to have seen is that it was abandoned (and maybe salvageable) or protected by pirates/freelancers/isolationists or not be able to dock until I'd run some missions or similar. There's loads of potential around even that scenario but none of it is in game yet. Nor do we know if it's going to be although they certainly gave the impression they wanted the game to be more alive.

Basically, I still personally think it's a bit early for the "it's going to be shit" rhetoric given the amount of changes added to Beta 2, the amount of content still to be implemented and the amount of WIP systems that are (hopefully) not finalized. I think it's already a good game (hell, I've managed to accrue over 30 hours play since the beginning of Beta 1 and that's more time than I spend in some finished games!) and has the potential to be great. But equally, it has the potential to massively disappoint if they don't deliver.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hoax on October 08, 2014, 08:28:27 AM
Apoc said what I've always assumed about this game.

Looking at the wormhole screen thing is going to get super fucking boring eventually.

I've yet to see a video of E:D that I watched all the way through. I was expecting something more like those old 2d space trading games where you would fly into a system and things would happen and you would settle some scores or run or whatever then make some dosh buying and selling then move on.

Instead this game is very much looking like Eve but with dogfighting combat. Which was something everyone who ever played Eve said they wanted but Eve is a MASSIVE multiplayer game where the other players are content. I haven't heard anything positive about interacting with other humans in E:D.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 09, 2014, 01:40:32 AM
They are having a poll to see if the flight model changes need to be reverted. This is good.

Also, Peek of the Week (refueling by getting close to a star).

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20peek_of_the_week_54%20resize.png)




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 09, 2014, 02:41:24 AM
Basically, I still personally think it's a bit early for the "it's going to be shit" rhetoric given the amount of changes added to Beta 2

Well, I think I did say in my Psychowall ( :awesome_for_real: ) something along the lines of "unless major changes are made before release", which I'm gonna stand by :)  There is a lot of potential, most definitely, but unless they achieve some of that potential it's going to be a 5-7/10 game with a tiny playerbase that never makes enough money to release the expansions without driving the cash shop prices even more ridiculously high than they already are.

Also, something I would like to clarify: wanting some changes doesn't mean I want to exclude or remove the things that other people currently like. Some people love the in-system frameshift travel, that's cool, I don't want to remove that and force everyone to insta-teleport to the station. I just want some kind of solution that makes it less boring for people who *don't* feel like that. I'm a firm believer in providing inclusive options to players in games. The more different tastes and playstyles you can support and encourage then the broader your potential market is going to be.

As an aside, something that's resulted from my voicing of my concerns about the game is that the Witchspace Diaries is now no more. I pointed Mike (the other half of the show and the guy who started it all) to it and he disagreed with my views so strongly that he's not prepared to do the show with me any more. I'm quite sad about that, but I understand his position and respect that. He and I are old friends and nothing's going to change that, but there will be no more Elite ship undercarriage porn or terrible piloting skills on display from us. We'd nearly worked out all our sound issues too!  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 09, 2014, 03:31:58 AM
That's really sad. I can't really imagine two older men having such a problem over a game though. What's his story? He just wants to keep the blind hype up with no critical criticism of sorts?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hoax on October 09, 2014, 04:13:11 AM
Sunk Cost Fallacy does crazy shit to old men who "invest" in these games. No amount of stupid from these founders/backers surprises me anymore.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on October 09, 2014, 04:30:14 AM
I'm sorry but I'm confused and that whole discussion is making me even more confused.

I get that the game right now is not the game you want it to be and I get that you fear the game might never become the kind of game you want it to be. I do take a little offense that you accuse us of shutting down the discussion by accusing you of "whining", though, which nobody in this thread did but maybe I misunderstand that sentence. Me seeing the state of the game and whether it is good or bad differently from you doesn't mean that you are wrong and that you should quit whining it just means that my opinion is different from yours.

That being said I'm still confused because the game in the current state is -give or take - exactly the kind of game that was advertised by Braben and Frontier development. He wanted to make a game that is basically a remake of the original Elite updated for today's graphical and computing capabilities. His vision has always been to give you a 'realistic' experience of the 'vastness' of space and to update the game mechanics of the original to what is possible today. He never advertised it as anything approaching X-Wing, TIE-Fighter, Privateer or Freespace. We can argue about whether or not he delivered all of the game systems he promised or if he even intends to do so, but having a more fleshed out mission system will not suddenly turn this into Freelancer. This game will always be an Elite game and Braben never claimed that it would be anything else at least not that I'm aware of.

We can debate if that is enough to ensure that the game will be sucessful (probably not, all the people who were interested already financed the kickstarter or bought early access). We can debate if all of the effort into galaxy building is really necessary and money well spent when there's little to do in there. We can also debate whether or not the Elite formula is really a good fit for a game in this day and age and whether or not it should have stayed in 1984.

I just don't get the criticism of this just being essentially an Elite game with updated graphics and mechanics though because that was the whole purpose of the kickstarter campaign.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on October 09, 2014, 04:34:12 AM
No this has nothing to do with sunk costs. If we were talking about Star Citizen I'd tend to agree but not as far as E:D is concerned where the maximum you could spend is a lot less.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hoax on October 09, 2014, 04:41:36 AM
No this has nothing to do with sunk costs. If we were talking about Star Citizen I'd tend to agree but not as far as E:D is concerned where the maximum you could spend is a lot less.

nooooooooooooo it definitely is.

You see it just with jackoffs that spend full sticker price for the game long before it comes out. $60 is enough to turn a lot of people into complete gibbering retards with zero capability for objective or nuanced thought about the prospects of a game. Star Citizen may be the most extreme crazy example we'll ever see of the psychological effects of sunk cost but E:D backers are mainly going to have the same hard time swallowing any criticism at all because of sunk cost even if they didn't mortgage their house to back a space game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on October 09, 2014, 04:48:20 AM
I think we can learn a lot from games like E:D

- no amount of user generated or procedurally generated content can replace a good hand crafted campaign and/or story
- making huge open worlds doesn't make your game any better if there's not enough content in it
- making huge open worlds will probably divert important resources from actually making a better game, especially if you're a small team
- extensive beta access will cause your player base to burn out on your game before it even ships
- extensive beta access gives your players the illusion of being able to shape the game to their vision which is probably never the case.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on October 09, 2014, 04:50:07 AM
You see it just with jackoffs that spend full sticker price for the game long before it comes out. $60 is enough to turn a lot of people into complete gibbering retards with zero capability for objective or nuanced thought about the prospects of a game. Star Citizen may be the most extreme crazy example we'll ever see of the psychological effects of sunk cost but E:D backers are mainly going to have the same hard time swallowing any criticism at all because of sunk cost even if they didn't mortgage their house to back a space game.

I'll take your word for it because I can't even fathom how you could ever get into such a state of mind, especially when all you sank were $60 but the internet proves that you right daily.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yoru on October 09, 2014, 05:15:51 AM
I think we can learn a lot from games like E:D

- no amount of user generated or procedurally generated content can replace a good hand crafted campaign and/or story
- making huge open worlds doesn't make your game any better if there's not enough content in it
- making huge open worlds will probably divert important resources from actually making a better game, especially if you're a small team
- extensive beta access will cause your player base to burn out on your game before it even ships
- extensive beta access gives your players the illusion of being able to shape the game to their vision which is probably never the case.

Going point-by-point.

- I'd rephrase this as "Algorithms and users cannot (yet) replace professionally-balanced pacing." Story, campaign, or other content, the key is invisibly leading the player along a path just right for their individual level of skill and investment. Keep the fish hooked long enough to reel it in (for sales, DLC dollars, word-of-mouth to friends, whatever).

I say "yet" because some companies are working on technology which does assist in adjusting pacing, but it still requires much UX, tech and design work ahead of time to make a scenario amenable to algorithmically-adjusted pacing. (See: Valve's AI 'director'.)

- Agreed.

- Depends, but generally agreed. Don't forget that "huge open world" is great box-copy and will incentivize internet nerds to evangelize/buy the fuck out of your game. If your goal is hardcore-nerd sales, it's not the worst wild goose to chase. Just make sure they can't actually play a "final" version before they commit their dollars. The "it's beta" card makes a beautiful trump here.

- Not necessarily, but likely. I can think of only a handful of counterpoints (Minecraft, KSP). This may just be because your game doesn't have a sort of gameplay amenable to long-term retention; most likely, a burned-out player base will generate poor word-of-mouth/press and you've killed your "release day" sales numbers. (See also: Planetary Annihilation.)

- This is a valuable illusion if you're good at community handling, and extremely dangerous if you shatter it. Engage tastemakers and give them an illusory stake in the product, and you can get excellent buzz/word-of-mouth leading up to release. (Positive example: Civ:BE's handling of the CivFanatics forum. Negative example: This thread.)

Velvet-rope strategies are great for this and become mutually-beneficial arrangements. Your tastemakers gain fans/followers/subscribers/whatever (i.e. eyeballs, i.e. ad dollars), you get cheap PR.

--

Anyway, coming back down to E:D, I personally think I'll enjoy it when it's "done". Most of what I feel is lacking right now comes down to pacing and content balance, which is out-of-whack for QA reasons. The space dogfighting is fun in-itself and I can see myself coming back to it every few weeks for an hour or two of shooting space lasers, content expansions or not.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on October 09, 2014, 05:32:33 AM
They are having a poll to see if the flight model changes need to be reverted. This is good.

Also, Peek of the Week (refueling by getting close to a star).

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20peek_of_the_week_54%20resize.png)




Is it the same as it used to be? i.e just fly directly at star with no 'skimming' actually required?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on October 09, 2014, 05:43:38 AM
Minecraft is essentially computerized lego and the textbox definition of a 'sandbox' game. People generally don't burn out as quickly on that kind of activity, you don't burn out on playing with Lego you just get bored with what you made and start over.

The big difference is that Minecraft puts you in the role of building and shaping the world which will engage people for months and years while still keping things fresh while 'open world games' promise you to have months of fun in a static world created by someone else.

I'm curious how No man's sky will be received since it will essentially being faced with the same kind of problems.

Anyway my approach to E:D is essentially thze same: I looked over it during beta and now I'll wait until release.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on October 09, 2014, 08:57:04 AM
I do take a little offense that you accuse us of shutting down the discussion by accusing you of "whining", though, which nobody in this thread did but maybe I misunderstand that sentence.

In fairness, I did actually use the word whining and hold my hands up to it. It wasn't really fair of me but I also don't think I was using it to shut down discussion either. Can't deny that it may have been deliberately provocative though.  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on October 09, 2014, 08:59:42 AM
As an aside, something that's resulted from my voicing of my concerns about the game is that the Witchspace Diaries is now no more. I pointed Mike (the other half of the show and the guy who started it all) to it and he disagreed with my views so strongly that he's not prepared to do the show with me any more. I'm quite sad about that, but I understand his position and respect that. He and I are old friends and nothing's going to change that, but there will be no more Elite ship undercarriage porn or terrible piloting skills on display from us. We'd nearly worked out all our sound issues too!  :why_so_serious:

 :heartbreak:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on October 09, 2014, 10:15:26 AM
E:D *could* theoretically go more minecrafty, but it wouldn't be easy and it certainly isn't in the scope of recreating Elite84. If the game fizzles that might well be one of the reasons. Adding various forms of resources distributed unevenly across the galaxy and extraction/harvesting mechanisms would be the easiest place to start.  Players making persistent changes to the world seems incompatible with the core design choice of one universe experienced by all that they have gone with, unless it's extremely and annoyingly unnaturally restricted to the point of being almost meaningless as in landmark.  I think there is great potential for a good game along those lines , but I don't think E:D will be that game, sadly.

UI/UX also can't be ignored. Graphics aren't the only thing that's improved since 1984 though the average coder's skills at them seem unchanged since then.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 09, 2014, 11:42:00 PM
Jeff, the whining comment was partly a response to Drac, but more a reaction to how these (and any) concerns are treated on the official forums. There's a well-established cohort of posters there who are incapable of even conceiving that anything David Braben and the rest of the devs do or say could possibly be questioned in any way. Any feedback that isn't 100% positive is shut down ASAP with a range of accusations and over-reactions. I say is, it's actually been starting to change since the release of beta 2. I wasn't alone in hoping for more by now and the collective realisation from a lot of people that there's a huge amount missing from beta 2 in terms of features and gameplay is starting to raise eyebrows and questions.

As for what I want, well I think "hopes" is a better term than "expectations" right now. I had hoped that this dev team would be forward thinking and imaginative enough to see that simply recreating a 30 year old game wouldn't be a great success, but it's looking like I was wrong. Braben is a great salesman and orator - he talks in an incredibly enthusiastic way about ED and he'd convinced me that he wanted to make something that was, to quote, "a spiritual successor" to the previous games. He's a man who's entire career has been in game development, it didn't seem unreasonable to me to think he might have kept abreast of changes in that field since his one big success. Turns out I was wrong.

He's talked about a living, breathing galaxy and the vast gulf between that and the dead, sterile place we've been shown in beta 2 is shocking to me. If they can turn this around in 3 months then I'll be ecstatic but the impression I've got from playing for the last few months is that they don't even think there's a problem. And there are plenty of people who agree, and want the game to remain as it is, and that's fine, more power to them, I'm pleased that they're getting the game they want, I don't want to take that away from anyone. But it won't be a game that appeals for any length of time beyond a small group IMO.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 09, 2014, 11:44:31 PM
Oh and as for the thing with Mike and WSD, it's really not about sunk-cost or lack of objective analysis in the slightest, Mike's really not that kind of guy. Like I say, he's a close friend and will remain so, he just wanted to do a very lighthearted show and when there's a likelihood of disagreement or dispute then that's not his cup of tea.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on October 10, 2014, 12:54:27 AM
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you for the most part. Maybe I'm also too familiar with Braben's modus operandi. For thirty years all he wanted to make is another elite. Frontier, F:First Encounters they are all basically the same game just larger.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 10, 2014, 10:04:32 AM
Newsletter #44 is out. (http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=763bb19c70&e=9c44dd7c2a)

A new ship, the Imperial Trader, is coming soon. Also, confirmation that multiple ships ownership will be in beta 3 at the end of the month.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20imperial%20Trader%20edit.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on October 10, 2014, 08:09:35 PM
Smiley, hourglass body, spread wings, and that ladder whatever it is.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 17, 2014, 10:10:20 AM
Mining is finally coming. Next week.

http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=fdacb0a6c0&e=3c9b88d68d


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on October 17, 2014, 12:22:57 PM
No comment about this "Premiere Event" but just to say that I love this pic:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0KXzJECAAAdlV6.jpg:large)

(The relevance is that the event is taking place in the Imperial War Museum at Duxford which disappointingly does not have life size AT-ATs or TIE Fighters but does have a lot of old - and some new - aircraft. including Concorde.)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on October 28, 2014, 11:10:17 AM
Beta 3 is being released at some point today and brings mining, fuel scoops, interdiction & multiple ship ownership and will up the number of systems to 2406.  They also appear to be adding the Imperial Trader, the Lakon Type 7 and a ship called "The Hunter" which may, or may not be, the Imperial Courier.

(http://elitedangerous.com/extra/newsletter_2014_10_24/ScreenShot_2014-10-23_13-06-12.jpg)

Don't know how much I'm personally going to play this between now and launch though - might save something for December.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 28, 2014, 12:04:12 PM
I'll be giving it another whirl when beta 3 hits, see if any of my criticisms of beta 2 have been addressed. Beat 2 wasn't playable for several days after launch though so I might leave it til the weekend.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 30, 2014, 06:09:05 AM
http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=53169

3.01 incoming, bug fixes.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 30, 2014, 07:09:41 AM
The new stuff introduced with Beta 3 is all good, but the game still suffers from the "what now and why? syndrome. I was talking with some friends trying to come up with ideas about what exctly is missing from Elite Dangerous that would make us want to keep playing (because it's great to play it, but it seems to have little longevity in its present state), and we pretty much concluded that it needs:

- more player interaction. Even if only on an economic level, there should be some sort of player trading.
- crafting. Mining with no crafting tastes like cardboard.
- the human element. There's no storyline, no arching plot, no multi-staged missions, no contacts or agents that you can befriend or no system that you can call home. No humans in stations and not even the procedurally generated mission-giving faces from Elite 2. Look at this screenshot from 23 years ago. None of that is in Elite Dangerous.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/Elite%202%20missions2.png)


The sense of progression should be given you by the combat rank, from Harmless to Elite Deadly, but it's not enough if to get to the top you have to repeat the same very simple and spartan actions over and over for days. Again, this worked up to 1993, but now we all just need a few more layers of complexity and/or storytelling. The screenshot above says a lot: Elite 2 allowed me to tell myself my own story if nothing else, while so far Elite Dangerous doesn't since everything is colder and more lifeless than it was 21 years ago. 

I think so far this is an amazing space-trucker simulation, it's really really good and it's probably the foundation for something huge. But trucking simulations owe part of their charms to the scenery (which is obviously limited here) and their longevity or popularity are questionable at best. While Elite is already great at what it does, I really feel it needs more in terms of opportunities for players to generate content through interactions with each other (something stifled by the whole "I can go offline if things go bad"), and in terms of engaging things that can keep your attention to the game, be it bits of arching stories, big PvE tasks, reasons to fight, things to build or simply more unique things worth discovering.

The game is not finished so here's hoping for more. Since I love what is alraeady in it, I'd hate to be done with the game in a week because other than exploring 400 billion very similar stars there's nothing I can do aside from hauling smithore and fighting waves of identical enemies.

In a way, this feels like EVE with real dogfighting, but without the PvP and the Auction House. It definiltey needs more.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 30, 2014, 11:01:12 AM
I agree entirely Falc. Yes, it's beta, but it's the third major beta iteration and release is 2 months away. Why is there no *game* yet?

I think your criticisms could all share one factor - lack of imagination. These are all old mechanics just rehashed, and not very interestingly either. And I think that lack of imagination extends into all of the mechanics too. Have you tried or read about the mining? I've not had a go yet myself but it sounds like the most tedious, fiddly and pointless way of doing it ever. You equip a mining laser which then shoots chunks off of an asteroid which you then have to manually pick up with your cargo scoops (annoyingly difficult and frustrating and slow) and then refine them on-ship. People are saying that 20-40 mins of mining gets you 1-2 units of mineral.

The complaints about Frameshift drive being boring have been met with a greatly increased frequency of interdictions, so now you have 10 minutes of tedium, regularly interspersed with annoyingly being pulled out of FSD and shot at, oh and combat has got more lethal so you'll almost certainly take hull damage and often a fine for shooting back too. :facepalm:

The continuing lack of multiplayer mechanics is bizarre. Still there is no grouping, no coordinated warp, very limited communication mechanisms, no bounty sharing or group objectives. The only logical reason for this I can think of is that they can't make it work. I wonder if their peer-to-peer system is making proper multiplayer impossible?

This game is turning out to be the polar opposite of Star Citizen. That's all imagination and no actual delivering, this is getting stuff done but with no imagination or spark at all.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on October 30, 2014, 12:41:27 PM
I dare you to post that on the official forums. I'll share my popcorn with you as we watch them meltdown.

Edit: The official forums are an echo chamber of people pretending ED is perfect.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on October 31, 2014, 01:02:34 AM
Hah, yeah, I should post there more. It's felt pointless though because as you say, if you are critical there it's like you're speaking another language.

It's the crowdfunded closed beta curse - your beta testers are invested and inherently biased in favour of support, so the crucial voices of objective criticism get drowned.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 01, 2014, 01:45:14 PM
And you know what? Where the fuck are the external cameras. I don't want any stupid in game advantage, I just wanna take nice screenshots and look around as I can do in any fucking truck simulator AND any space game. I am tired of excuses.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on November 03, 2014, 08:37:42 AM
Finally got to play this in anger over the weekend, random observations...

I get binned out with 'cannot connect' errors wayyyy to much for a game this close the launch (not sure if this is private group related as my group mate gets binned at the same time)

Reconnecting in the middle of the system when I had just docked and crashed opening the market is not cool.

Too many idiots blocking docking tunnels

Game is going to get boring real quick (this is partly my fault due to grinding safe trading runs until I can get a bigger ship, then rinse/repeat)

Ship upgrades need some explanation, what do they do and why is this one more expensive than that one but has the same name?

As an aside, can someone tell me about fuel scoops. I saw a screenshot on a previous page and asked if works like old elite (i.e. fly at sun and it works automatically)? I'm assuming you have to turn it on (like the cargo scoop) but do you have to drop out of supercruise (or fly so close you drop out automatically due to proximity?)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 06, 2014, 04:07:04 AM
This doesn't change the fact that I have a hard time believing all that stuff will ever be realized in any way, and I don't trust Braben more than I trust Roberts. For example they said multiple times the game would have launched with 25 ships and considering it only has 11 with sixty days to go it's obvious that he didn't keep that promise. But based on what I've seen so far and the way these two guys advertise and push their work, I just prefer Braben's way of doing business and videogames.

I'm far less skeptical than you about this because I'm pretty sure they're keeping stuff back.  They teased the Orca in a newsletter #46 which they usually do when they they're going to release something shortly afterwards, and back in September they showed plans for a load of ships, some of which weren't in the game at the time but are now and also missing some that were in the game at the time.  I don't know about the full 25 - I'm not even sure there's a complete list of the full 25 - but I don't think there being at least 20 ships in by launch is outside the realm of possibility.

EDIT: A recap:

(http://elitedangerous.com/extra/newsletter_2014_09_12/ship_chart.jpg)

Top row, l-r
Python ?
Federal Dropship
Asp
Orca
Lakon 7

Middle row l-r
? ? ?
Eagle
? ? ?
Viper
Hauler
Cobra Mk III
Lakon 6
Dolphin

Bottom row
Sidewinder

Missing but in-game:
Anaconda
Lakon 9
Imperial Cutter

So 17 ships that I reckon Frontier have definitely built, 11 of which are in the game. I reckon they've got more that they've developed too but we just haven't seen yet.


Edited again to correct Hauler image


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yoru on November 06, 2014, 11:21:39 AM
Not splitting the above as it's back on-topic. However, fair warning: I will continue to split/den any posts veering back towards the Elite v. Star Citizen pissing match.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 07, 2014, 06:10:22 AM
Sneek peek of the next ship to be added, most likely the Python.


(https://i.imgur.com/xv7aEYK.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on November 07, 2014, 06:16:49 AM
Not pointy enough


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 07, 2014, 07:05:21 AM
Not pointy enough

None of the major ship manufacturers are prepared to risk a major Health and Safety lawsuit after that unfortunate incident on Mongo.

Edit:

In the original concept art, there used to be a cockpit right on the nose

(https://i.imgur.com/LGk2QCA.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 07, 2014, 07:16:28 AM
Right. Where's the people now that they chopped the cockpit off?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 07, 2014, 10:18:17 AM
Official Launch, December 16th.

http://instagram.com/p/vGxLl9KNBt/

(Instagram, really?  :oh_i_see: )


EDIT: And here is a brand new video where they hint at all the things (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yd-m9AR7mY) that will be developed after launch for future expansions.

- Walking in stations and hangars
- Walking inside ships
- Getting out of your ship in space
- Planetary landing
- Land vehicles and planets exploration

Will they ever make it? I doubt it, but this is the long term plan.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 07, 2014, 12:46:15 PM
I'm sure it's no surprise that I think releasing on 16th December is a mistake. The game is so, so unfinished, and the scale of changes they'd need to make in the next 5 weeks to have a successful launch dwarfs the changes between betas 2 and 3.

There is STILL no grouping system, no way to play with friends reliably! They have sworn that will be in for release but to launch with such a key system untested is, simply, lunacy.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 07, 2014, 01:00:47 PM
Honestly, I'd bet grouping and playing with friends WILL be in the final release in a month. It's everything else that won't be and will make me wait a good 6 months before I'll start emotionally investing into a career.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on November 07, 2014, 02:28:35 PM
December 16th confirmed

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29939113

Talks about it and Star citizen, Star Citizen gets a 2016 release date.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yoru on November 10, 2014, 04:08:50 AM
Will they ever make it? I doubt it, but this is the long term plan.

When are they planning to add fun?  :why_so_serious:


No, seriously, I picked this back up during beta 3 and managed to fly for about three star systems before logging out to go read a book instead. I find the new interdiction mechanic extremely annoying (although I can see why some would like it), and the game is just as information-opaque as ever.  Flying around randomly, trying to find the ship and parts I need to try out the new systems isn't fun.

So far, I'm kinda chalking this one up as "a lot of potential wasted on a rushed release/poorly-staffed content team".  They've got the technical bits and placeholders in, but they don't seem to ever flesh any of their systems out.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 10, 2014, 04:28:20 AM
In a way, they might never add it because what they (Braben and his most loyal fans) consider fun is not necessarily what me or you consider fun. I am more into what they are doing than you (I like truck driving simulations), but as I wrote multiple times this one needs more to avoid being, yes, a wasted opportunity.

Yet, they might not change much because the design is supposed to be like this. Even with planetary landing and walking in stations, chances are it will always be an explorative and meditative game -as were the originals- more than what we are used to expect and desire these days, which is at least a bit of curated narrative and vague purpose.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yoru on November 10, 2014, 06:36:54 AM
Honestly, what I think I really want out of this is certainly something different from what they're going to produce.  They have a very fun dogfighting system, but it feels like I need to grind for X hours doing trade milk-runs before I can do Y amount of dogfighting - and the magnitude of X in comparison to Y means that I'm going to fight conservatively, because getting blown up probably means doing another X hours to trading to get back to Space Lazorz.

I think a session-based World-of-Tanks style game could be very easily built off the back of the dogfighting simulation they've got, but that's certainly not in the cards.

--

I think my biggest problem is the enormous cognitive dissonance in the game's "open/responsive world" cladding and the 1980s super-gamey systems beneath the surface.  They've happily incorporated the "atmospheric tedium" you get from open worlds, but without any of the trappings that make it feels like a living place.

Aforementioned example: I want to buy a nicer ship, of a specific type. Somehow, we have a game world where merchants don't advertise; there's no messages from "Crazy Stan's Used Cobras" on my news ticker which might tip me off as to where to buy ships or modules, nor can I ask an NPC for help -- I just have to kinda derp around like a clueless, pre-Internet tourist who forgot to buy the Lonely Planet guide to New Dongistan 5.  I can kinda apply some knowledge of the design ("okay, ships and modules are usually sold in high-tech systems, let's see where those are... ah, 7 jumps away. Now for a 30 minute cruise and a 20% chance they'll actually sell the thing."), but that's about it.

Or I consult a wiki.

Shit, just add some kind of shitty menu where I can go talk to the Space Information Booth. "Hey I want to get into mining, where can I buy a mining laser?" "I hear they sell them at Alpha Dickslap C, pilot."


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 10, 2014, 06:53:44 AM
Aforementioned example: I want to buy a nicer ship, of a specific type. Somehow, we have a game world where merchants don't advertise; there's no messages from "Crazy Stan's Used Cobras" on my news ticker which might tip me off as to where to buy ships or modules, nor can I ask an NPC for help -- I just have to kinda derp around like a clueless, pre-Internet tourist who forgot to buy the Lonely Planet guide to New Dongistan 5.  I can kinda apply some knowledge of the design ("okay, ships and modules are usually sold in high-tech systems, let's see where those are... ah, 7 jumps away. Now for a 30 minute cruise and a 20% chance they'll actually sell the thing."), but that's about it.

Or I consult a wiki.

Shit, just add some kind of shitty menu where I can go talk to the Space Information Booth. "Hey I want to get into mining, where can I buy a mining laser?" "I hear they sell them at Alpha Dickslap C, pilot."


Perfect example, I agree 100%. I wouldn't like the game if the Information Booth you mentioned gave me dead on answers every time, but I would definitely enjoy pointers, or random deals like Crazy Stan's stuff, and ultimately a limited (range?) player economy. I agree 100% that while the whole "loneliness of space, and its mystery" is awesome and part of the concept, it all lacks life *at the moment*. Hell, it doesn't even lack "soul", no, it really just lacks life. And even though I've read all the design documents multiple times, I am not sure in what way and when it'll be finally introduced.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on November 10, 2014, 11:15:16 AM
it reminds me of one of the things X3-Terran Conflict lost over the previous X games was the "bulletin board" that you could look at in stations. It was the way you got missions but you got a lot of "fluff" info as well. They replaced that with simply communicating with the stations with TC, but they never replaced that "heavy pirate activity in system X" thing you got from the boards which did give you a sense of a living universe out there.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on November 10, 2014, 01:33:15 PM
I think I must be part of the group Braben is designing for. I am pretty satisfied with what E:D is so far. I occasionally fire it up, grab my hotas and play space truck driver, while exploring different systems and markets. I am not sure Frontier really even gives a crap trying to provide anything other than what they want to play themselves. I don't know how I feel about that.

There are really good ideas here about how to improve information systems for players though, and I would really like some of them to be incorporated. There definitely needs to be some sort of system for providing players with more information. However, if they release it in its current state, I am fine with that and will play it a ton, while i earn my space bucks driving space my space truck.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 12, 2014, 12:32:35 AM
A cool infographic showing what you can do and how in Elite: Dangerous so far.




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on November 12, 2014, 03:20:29 AM
That's interesting, but I'm going to go ahead and agree that it's just not enough to my mind.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 14, 2014, 04:40:20 PM
Today's newsletter was a masterclass in marketing doublespeak.   :oh_i_see:

- "We're going to have 30 ships!" (But won't have them all in at launch!)
- "We're making sure it's absolutely as polished as it can be!" (There aren't as many features as we hoped)
- "There'll be a rich and dynamic online universe!" (But that offline solo game we mentioned isn't going to happen.)
- "We'll be as communicative and transparent as we've always been!" (But we're still not going to be completely straight with you.)
- "Here are some extra bonuses for beta players, including a free ship!" (Please ignore the fact that we're not ready for launch! Also, the free ship won't be ready for a while.)

Still, more salient news is one more patch (3.9 - current version is 3.05 so definite last beta patch before "Gamma") is released next Thursday, two days before the preview release. There will be some new features added but tight lips on what they are (although bringing back a separate key for Supercruise is happening).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Kail on November 14, 2014, 05:58:30 PM
- "There'll be a rich and dynamic online universe!" (But that offline solo game we mentioned isn't going to happen.)

Argh, nooooo!  Can someone elaborate on this?  It won't be playable offline at all, or just no "story mode" or what?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 14, 2014, 06:05:45 PM
- "There'll be a rich and dynamic online universe!" (But that offline solo game we mentioned isn't going to happen.)

Argh, nooooo!  Can someone elaborate on this?  It won't be playable offline at all, or just no "story mode" or what?



This is what they have written in the newsletter, and it's obviously super vague. So, no one really knows what it all means and most importantly WHEN it'll happen.  :oh_i_see:

Quote from: David Braben
Going forwards, being online lets us constantly both curate and evolve the galaxy, with stories unfolding according to the actions of commanders. Exploration is also a key factor, too, and it is important that what a single player explores matches what other players explore whether single or multiplayer – a complex, coherent world – something we have achieved. Galaxy, story, missions, have to match, and it does mean the single player has to connect to the server from time to time, but this has the added advantage that everyone can participate in the activities that can happen in the galaxy.  A fully offline experience would be unacceptably limited and static compared to the dynamic, ever unfolding experience we are delivering.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 15, 2014, 12:44:13 AM
This is what they have written in the newsletter, and it's obviously super vague. So, no one really knows what it all means and most importantly WHEN it'll happen.  :oh_i_see:

They elaborated more on the forum. Fair play to Michael Brookes, he's dealt with most of the fallout from this but the bottom line is no, there won't be an offline mode.

Quote from: Michael Brookes
The problem is that the galaxy mechanics all sit on the online servers. The data set and processes are huge and not something that would translate offline without considerable compromise to the vision. Trust me we didn't sit down and think what would annoy people the most! It's a choice we've had to make and so we've taken it.
(Source (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=58789&page=6&p=997372&highlight=#post997372))


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on November 15, 2014, 06:28:46 AM
Fail.  Pass.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 15, 2014, 07:12:07 AM
See this just strikes me as the worst of both worlds.

On the one hand you can't play offline, single-player because connected yadda yadda. And on the other hand when you play it online, multiplayer, there's no actual grouping tools so you're just playing it single-player but with griefers.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on November 15, 2014, 07:13:17 AM
I'm not upset about no offline. However, I will be furious if they remove online solo mode.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: cironian on November 15, 2014, 10:31:07 AM
I'm not upset about no offline. However, I will be furious if they remove online solo mode.

That would be a huge surprise, seeing how that and closed group mode are presented as major features and are working fine.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ceryse on November 16, 2014, 09:01:30 AM
Fail.  Pass.


This. I'd been looking forward to the game, but have zero interest in online play. Thankfully I haven't put any money/time into this game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 16, 2014, 09:55:11 AM
As happy as I would be if they removed solo play (at least, they should remove the ability to jump from offline to online and vice versa), I doubt this is what is going to happen. Too many old Elite players are into this for the "classic" solo offline experience. It's too soon to pass, I am sure they'll explain later what they meant and that somehow the offline solo experience would be there. Hell, lots of people backed this on Kickstarter based on it, so I realy can't see how can they just remove it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on November 16, 2014, 10:00:03 AM
Fail.  Pass.


This. I'd been looking forward to the game, but have zero interest in online play. Thankfully I haven't put any money/time into this game.

Are people still cranky about this sort of thing? You can barely play the single player campaigns in most games without signing into something these days. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on November 16, 2014, 10:28:13 AM
Well I just had a month without decent internet and all I could play was offline stuff, so it is a thing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on November 16, 2014, 10:41:27 AM
Well I just had a month without decent internet and all I could play was offline stuff, so it is a thing.

I mean, I know it's a thing.  But if you're someone who really wants to play solo Elite, barring this kind of frankly rare scenario these days, you can still do it.  I guess you could just be upset enough with them for the decision that you don't buy the thing in principle but "I have no interest in online play" seems odd when "online play" no longer means "multiplayer" and I get the feeling that people don't want to play multiplayer.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 16, 2014, 01:52:44 PM
"I have no interest in online play" seems odd when "online play" no longer means "multiplayer" and I get the feeling that people don't want to play multiplayer.

This is worth highlighting. You can still play solo. Theoretically, your game will also be impacted by other players in an indirect way (market trading mostly - maybe what's available in terms of downloadable exploration data, maybe in terms of Galnet news items, hopefully in terms of galaxy evolution) but you don't ever have to interact with those players.

At the moment, though, the "dynamic universe" only had a brief weeks try out at the end of Beta 1. On the plus side, you could see what was going on even in solo but on the minus, there was no significant impact on the game because, well, beta.




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Typhon on November 16, 2014, 02:09:51 PM
There was a time (pre Diablo 3) when I was happy that many games were coming out "online only" because I took it to mean that I could play solo or with friends pretty easily.  Chronic latency, login issues and service maintenance windows that made (and to some extent still make) playing the game when I want to play it, how I want to play it, not as pleasant an experience as I'd like have changed my mind.  I'll probably just wait a good three months after this comes out to make sure they have all their infrastructure challenges overcome.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Kail on November 16, 2014, 02:25:38 PM
"I have no interest in online play" seems odd when "online play" no longer means "multiplayer" and I get the feeling that people don't want to play multiplayer.

That's the probem; "online play" doesn't mean multiplayer, it means "always on DRM".  I hated it when they pulled this "your computer can't HANDLE the intense processing" shit in Sim City, I hate when they're doing it here.  I might be moving to somewhere with crap internet soon, so I guess this makes me one of the rare people who gives a shit, but even if I wasn't moving this still annoys me on principle.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 16, 2014, 03:58:33 PM
Well, it was only a matter of time before the backlash.

Elite: Dangerous Drops Its Promised Offline Mode (http://www.gamespot.com/articles/elite-dangerous-drops-its-promised-offline-mode/1100-6423629/)

Quote
A month before space sim Elite: Dangerous' final release, developer Frontier Developments announced that the game will not have the offline mode initially promised during its Kickstarter campaign.

"Being online lets us constantly both curate and evolve the galaxy, with stories unfolding according to the actions of commanders," Frontier Developments CEO David Braben said in a recent newsletter to fans. "Exploration is also a key factor, too, and it is important that what a single player explores matches what other players explore whether single or multiplayer – a complex, coherent world – something we have achieved."

As the game's FAQ section on Kickstarter still shows, the game was always focused on a persistent, shared world, but would also allow players to choose a single player game without connecting to the galaxy server.

As executive producer Michael Brooke explains on the game's forums (where some upset backers are asking for refunds), "the problem is that the galaxy mechanics all sit on the online servers. The data set and processes are huge and not something that would translate offline without considerable compromise to the vision. Trust me we didn't sit down and think what would annoy people the most! It's a choice we've had to make and so we've taken it."

In short, you can still play a single player mode, but the game requires an internet connection to sync up with the galaxy's shared economy.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on November 17, 2014, 12:56:11 AM
After the recent string of online fuckups (Sim City, Drive Club, Warlords of Draenor with its constant 5000+ queues, Battlefield 4) and the tendency of developers of even popular online experiences to shut down servers after two years I'm less than thrilled.

Flip flopping on a kick starter promise is just as bad. If online play against other players becomes the new normal even for "single player" type games I'll probably have to do something else. If I wanted lag, crashes, waiting in line for hours just to play for five minutes until the server crashes, getting ganked and griefed and called a noob and a cunt on the net I could always play WOW instead or go to the popular clubs in my city.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 17, 2014, 01:22:42 AM
getting ganked and griefed and called a noob and a cunt on the net I could always play WOW instead or go to the popular clubs in my city.

They are not dropping the online solo mode. You will never be forced to interact with other players if you don't want to.

Dropping the offline mode is something that will impact a very small number of people most of the time. The always-on DRM aspect is here to stay in the gaming industry, I think that horse is well and truly dead. Dropping a Kickstarter promise is more egregious to me and further erodes trust in Braben & FD, and the crowd-funding method in general.

I'm still waiting for any gaming news outlet to admit to the real flaw with E:D, which is that it's incredibly tedious to play.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 17, 2014, 01:29:17 AM
I'm still waiting for any gaming news outlet to admit to the real flaw with E:D, which is that it's incredibly tedious to play.

Apo, I'd say they are waiting on release for that. And that's quite fair. After December 16th, if nothing miraculously change in the next 30 days, you are gonna read that everywhere.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on November 17, 2014, 01:30:28 AM
Well I just had a month without decent internet and all I could play was offline stuff, so it is a thing.

I mean, I know it's a thing.  But if you're someone who really wants to play solo Elite, barring this kind of frankly rare scenario these days, you can still do it.  I guess you could just be upset enough with them for the decision that you don't buy the thing in principle but "I have no interest in online play" seems odd when "online play" no longer means "multiplayer" and I get the feeling that people don't want to play multiplayer.

2 Things

1 - I have no interest in ONCE AGAIN explaining different playstyles, environment or personal tastes to you.  YOU are not ME.  It's that simple.
2 - I eagerly awaiting this thing getting released on consoles entirely in offline mode.

FUCK Always Online.  It's a Lie and It's Always a Lie.

You fuckers jumped up and down on me for Diablo 3 for fucking ages and it all played out pretty much as some of us here predicted.  Get Always Online To Fuck.

Also, once NN gets raped, always online is just gonna be another tax.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on November 17, 2014, 01:45:15 AM
Worse even. I fully expect it to be used to "encourage" people to upgrade to the next game in the series. It will only be a matter of time until servers for a game go down the instant the next installment in the series is available in stores. After all people still being able to play a decade old game is not a business model.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 17, 2014, 01:57:32 AM
Here's ALL the public explanations Michael Brookes has given on the topic in the past three days. If you care about the details as opposed to hearsay, it's worth a read.
"Spoilered" for size.






The important parts:

- Question: What would you lose in offline mode? Answer: The online servers provide all of the data and processing for the galaxy, interactions between players and all transactions of value. Without it there isn't a game. We always intended that the way to play the game would be online. We had hoped that we could do an offline variant, but as the game progressed the online requirement superseded that. It wasn't an easy choice to make, but to stay true to the game we set out to make we had to make this choice.

- Question: what happened to the idea of creating a cut-down single-player experience? Answer: The problem is that you wouldn't have got that. During the kickstarter we thought we would be able to operate a dual mode with the offline version cut down. As we've progressed more of the game has had to exist online, so much so that an offline version would be mostly a new and different game - which is something we can't support. The galaxy exists as an online entity, extracting that into an offline version that still works as game isn't simple. Missions are a good example, they are created based on the state of the galaxy and they feed back into the state of the galaxy there's a big level of difference between what we're doing now and what was in the previous games..

- There's an established process on the store for requesting a refund: https://store.zaonce.net/cancellations-returns/

- Question: How will single-player online mode work? Answer: Single player online does require a consistent connection.

- Question: how often will the single-player client connect to the server? Answer: At the moment it's whenever you need to conduct a server moderated transaction like trading.

- Question: if my network connection dropped out, how long could I go before the client had a problem? Answer: Until it needs to retrieve data from the server or moderate a transaction.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on November 17, 2014, 02:02:35 AM
We always intended that the way to play the game would be online.

 :uhrr:

Translation :  It was a Kickstarter, so we lied through our teeth for some sweet cash.  Tough Break Suckers.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 17, 2014, 03:15:48 AM
As much as I have criticisms for E:D and FD they don't strike me as being like that. I do think they're being genuine when they said they just couldn't find another way around the problem.

On the other hand, it's a problem entirely of their own making and I think their insistence on a playable galaxy consisting of 100's of billions of systems is pointless and extremely constraining on the design and resultant gameplay. Also, I've yet to see any actual noticeable/interesting effect on the playable systems of other players, there is nothing dynamic about it so far. Yet to come, sure.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on November 17, 2014, 04:52:41 AM
Always on is the ultimate deal breaker for me and always will. Even if you have a competent developer and a great internet connection (I'm on a 50 MBit down/10MBit up VDSL pretty much the best you can get if you're not on Google fibre or in Korea) you're constantly running into issues due to overload issues (evenings, weekends, holidays), fuckups on patch day, the internet actually being used by other people besides gamers for stuff or people just being dicks in your game and making the experience a bad one for everyone.

I've played online multiplayer games for a decade now and when even a decade old game from a publisher swimming in money is still prone to issues with load and latency, when online services get taken down for months due to hacking (see PSN) and games with huge issues simply won't get fixed (Battlefield 4) or the servers get taken down after a year due to the operation 'not being commercially viable' I know that I really don't want that shit in a single player mode. You couldn't play Mass Effect 3 for a month after release due to Origin being shit and totally overwhelmed by the demand for that single game for example.

Multiplayer and Online is still - in 2014 - such a crapshoot and there are so many AAA games witzh such large and glaring online issues that I really don't like online if it isn't really absolutely necessary.Those issues might be par for the course for multiplayer only games but in a single player oriented game (and Elite was pitched as single player first with multiplayer as add-on initially even if they now claim otherwise) there is really no benefit that I'd consider to be big enough to basically hand over the decision of whether or not I can play the game any longer to the developer or publisher.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tmp on November 17, 2014, 05:12:59 AM
Sounds like opportunity for Star Citizen. Promise offline mode as the next milestone. :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 17, 2014, 05:36:27 AM
Haha, offline mode is already part of the Star Citizen bundle. When you buy Star Citizen you get Squadron 42, which is the offline and story-heavy version of it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on November 17, 2014, 06:18:12 AM
YOU are not ME.


Thank god for that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tebonas on November 17, 2014, 06:46:25 AM
Yeah, this is a dealbreaker for me as well.

More power to the people for whom it isn't, but don't pretend always online is for everyone.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on November 17, 2014, 08:35:11 AM
Haha, offline mode is already part of the Star Citizen bundle. When you buy Star Citizen you get Squadron 42, which is the offline and story-heavy version of it.
Plus you'll be able to run your own server.

It's purely an architectural design challenge.  ED built with the assumption their servers would always be handling stuff, with the hope but not the design planned, to allow such things offline.  If you don't don't scope out your design for it, it's not going to happen.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 17, 2014, 09:18:30 AM
At least they're getting reamed on the forums for this decision.

I think the scales are finally starting to fall from the eyes of a lot of backers.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tazelbain on November 17, 2014, 10:31:18 AM
Feels they could easily do galaxy updates as a nightly sync thing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 17, 2014, 10:45:03 AM
MichaelB rookes just posted:

Quote
The game is not launching as is. Most of the major features are there, but there have been a host of fixes and improvements. And there are a few new things coming as well. The release on December 16th isn't the end of development either, we have lots of new content and features we want to bring into the game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on November 17, 2014, 12:22:28 PM
getting ganked and griefed and called a noob and a cunt on the net I could always play WOW instead or go to the popular clubs in my city.

They are not dropping the online solo mode. You will never be forced to interact with other players if you don't want to.

Er, not quite correct. The trading game/markets are apparently 100% full-on PvP, right? If a few thousand (or however many it takes) players collude to corner the market in civilized space using 24/7 presence, shared market data, coordinated dumping, hacks and everything else they've proven capable of doing to get an edge in other games like Eve and Archeage, will there be enough room left for solo - mode and casuals to have fun?   While not the same issue as getting ganked en-route, it remains to be seen if the useful market space is big and resilient enough to still provide that key trading game to individuals while being hammered and manipulated by the cartels.


I'm going to guess not, or not for long anyway.

Quote
The always-on DRM aspect is here to stay in the gaming industry, I think that horse is well and truly dead.

Minecraft being the exception, of course.  Hopefully not the one that proves the rule!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 17, 2014, 12:27:00 PM
With 400 billion systems I don't think even Goonswarm could lock down anything more than a rounding error of the market.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on November 17, 2014, 01:12:23 PM
How many of those systems Will be accessible to a starting player ìn their newbie ship? I thought interdictions and various hostile forces would severely limit where you could go until you got a better ship?  Or is the whole galaxy at peace and full of open markets? I ask as an interested casual who honestly hopes against hope that this will end up being something I like, not just to be argumentative.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 17, 2014, 02:01:28 PM
Your ship jump range will be more of a limitation, so yeah the starter systems will be where you're stuck for a couple of hours probably. But you can't really trade (well, haul, there's no trading, just hauling) in the starter ship either.

And NPC interdictions are easily escapable in the Sidewinder. And there won't be any player interdictions unless you want there to be. It's not EVE. Calling the market "pvp" is really not accurate. It's just not that dynamic.

I'm not trying to defend FD's decision to remove the offline solo play, I'm simply trying to explain just how limited the player interaction is going to be in online solo mode.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on November 17, 2014, 03:20:30 PM
Oh! There's no real trade?  You can't buy low one place and sell high another, just haul Someone else's goods on Contract? I may be Confused by only half paying attention while wAtching this and that other game at the same time. Or read too Much inTo terms like markets and wtf is with my phone capitalizing like a script kiddie? Sorry bout that!

I thought npc pirates did interdictions too?

I miss Witchspace diaries by the way, those were fun. Sorry to see that fall apart.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on November 17, 2014, 03:53:02 PM
The other issue for a lot of people is that they have bandwidth limits, and they could slam right into them with an always on connection depending on how much data is bieng swapped between the server and the client.

Hrm... I'm getting the urge to play Freelancer lately...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Margalis on November 17, 2014, 05:29:04 PM
So their explanation is that they promised an offline mode but designed the game such that an offline mode wasn't possible.

Hmm.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on November 17, 2014, 07:21:21 PM
Yes.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Margalis on November 17, 2014, 10:27:32 PM
Well that seems scummy but at the same time "lol kickstarter."

This is one of the reasons I dislike KS. Games change a lot during development, it doesn't make sense to promise specific things up front. Often those promises are bad ideas or just flat out don't make sense once the game evolves a bit.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 18, 2014, 03:30:20 AM
We always intended that the way to play the game would be online.

 :uhrr:

Translation :  It was a Kickstarter, so we lied through our teeth for some sweet cash.  Tough Break Suckers.

Come on - the way most people are trying to spin it is saying Frontier put their KS announced that E: D would be an offline single player experience and then added online aspect as an afterthought.  It didn't pan out like that - they said from the outset that the game would be online and server based. Adding an offline mode was the afterthought. From their KS FAQ:

Quote
How will single player work? Will I need to connect to a server to play?

The galaxy for Elite: Dangerous is a shared universe maintained by a central server. All of the meta data for the galaxy is shared between players. This includes the galaxy itself as well as transient information like economies. The aim here is that a player's actions will influence the development of the galaxy, without necessarily having to play multiplayer.

The other important aspect for us is that we can seed the galaxy with events, often these events will be triggered by player actions. With a living breathing galaxy players can discover new and interesting things long after they have started playing.

Update! The above is the intended single player experience. However it will be possible to have a single player game without connecting to the galaxy server. You won't get the features of the evolving galaxy (although we will investigate minimising those differences) and you probably won't be able to sync between server and non-server (again we'll investigate).

Even back then they also said that it would be more limited than the online version and they've maintained that all the way along. But yeah, their mistake was saying "it will be possible..." and I bet they're regretting that now.

Personally, I'm more pissed off at the thought that they spent a lot of time trying to get offline working when they could have spent it fixing other shit. Hopefully they didn't bother at all and just decided to write it off.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 18, 2014, 04:02:41 AM
Oh! There's no real trade?  You can't buy low one place and sell high another, just haul Someone else's goods on Contract? I may be Confused by only half paying attention while wAtching this and that other game at the same time. Or read too Much inTo terms like markets and wtf is with my phone capitalizing like a script kiddie? Sorry bout that!

I thought npc pirates did interdictions too?

I miss Witchspace diaries by the way, those were fun. Sorry to see that fall apart.

Disclaimer: I haven't played since beta 2, much of this may have changed.

Yes, you can buy low & sell high, but there's no complexity to it and it's just tedious repetition of carting goods from one place to another, with no way to tell until you actually *dock* at a station what the price for your goods is going to be.

In Eve you can see the prices for all goods across large distances, depending on character skills, all (or most) goods are produced and traded by players and therefore the influence you can have on the market is significant. E:D commodities have no use outside their role as market items, the supply & demand of them seems entirely inelastic and unaffected by players, and there is no real strategy involved beyond "get the biggest cargo bay you can and haul stuff over and over again". There are no player contracts, only NPC haulage missions.

And NPCs do interdict, frequently, but when I last played they were very easy to escape from and served no purpose other than slowing down your travel even further.

I also miss the Witchspace Diaries, it would have been really nice to be able to discuss some of the serious issues affecting the game, but that turned out not to be possible. Learning experience for me, for sure!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 18, 2014, 10:33:07 AM
So, Braben spent a couple of hours on the official forums answering all sorts of questions.

Here's the recap:



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 18, 2014, 01:59:44 PM
I'm impressed that you actually copied all that in and formatted it all. That's dedication.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on November 18, 2014, 02:17:01 PM
I'm impressed that you actually copied all that in and formatted it all. That's dedication.  :awesome_for_real:
After all this time, I expect no less from him.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 18, 2014, 02:37:23 PM
I'm impressed that you actually copied all that in and formatted it all. That's dedication.  :awesome_for_real:
After all this time, I expect no less from him.

I have a few obsessive compulsive things. Nothing major, but they are there.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 19, 2014, 02:26:06 AM
Two things notably missing from that Q&A. First any explanation of why the decision to renege on the offline mode was communicated so late, and secondly any form of apology for it. The closest he comes to that is to say he's "sorry that people are so upset about it, but it was the right decision". Classic non-apology.

Also, refund requests are simply being denied by the looks of it:

Quote
The cancellations and returns policy on our site states that digital products are non-refundable once they are downloaded and played by the customer. As such, we are unable to offer you a refund on this purchase.

I’m sorry that we cannot assist you further in this instance.

Sincerely,
Support

That's from this thread (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=60257). There's someone in there who bought the game 6 days ago and has had their refund request denied.

I think that there would've been much less uproar if the game as it is was any good tbh. I think there's a lot of people with early backer's remorse who can use the cancellation of offline mode to say that's why they want a refund, rather than just because the game is shit. And that might be an unconscious thing, for sure.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 19, 2014, 02:47:17 AM
Also, no mention of external cameras. It is important.

Anyway, if they fix grouping AND add some meaingful stuff when it comes to the "background simulation" and the feeling that the universe is alive, I will consider the game good even in its infancy stage. And I don't consider that an impossible task for launch, although I don't really believe they'll make it. I don't have any doubts about how awesome the game will be in a year or two, but at the moment this is just another rushed release, or an "early access" in disguise.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 19, 2014, 03:14:13 PM
Newsletter #50 is out (http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=6b99a1d038&e=3c9b88d68d) two days ahead of the usual, and in full damage control mode they tried to reveal a few good things about the upcoming version 3.9 and the road to release in a month.

In short:

- Progression through the Elite ranks will come through combat, trading and exploration.
- Overhaul of the Unidentified Signals, making them more varied and interesting.
- Barter with other player (this is interesting and unexpected... barter goods but no buy/sale so no direct money transfer? Cool I guess?)
- Open Voice Communication between up to 6 members of a group.
- Ship Outfitting and Galaxy Map overhaul.

Then, something cryptic about what the expect for release:

Quote
The 16th December release of Elite: Dangerous will see the Federation, Empire and Alliance start their machinations in earnest, adding a new depth to your experiences in the galaxy. The design team are being tight-lipped about this. All we have heard is that “Hengist Duval is sick”. More on 22 November.

And then there are some new cool screenshots that deserve to be seen.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20HighResScreenShot_2014-11-19_11-35-55%20e.jpg)


Two more...



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on November 19, 2014, 03:21:29 PM
Screenshots without any gameplay context.  How compelling. :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 19, 2014, 03:26:08 PM
I do like that Python (if that's what it is)  :awesome_for_real:

As a side note, on Saturday I was planning on taking my son and his friend to the National Museum of Computing which is just up the road from us in Bletchley Park for a free coding class.  Just found out that they are planning an Elite day on that day with the option to play Elite on BBC B, C64, Amiga and even the NES. :drill:  


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 20, 2014, 05:44:27 AM
Split ranking for Combat, Trade and Exploration coming with today's patch.

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t31.0-8/p640x640/10750030_10154849707925564_4502749247013991522_o.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 20, 2014, 06:03:50 AM
I notice the little "Rebuy Cost" field in there too.  Is that new - certainly didn't see it last time I played.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 20, 2014, 06:17:08 AM
re Wipes:

This posted by Michael Brookes

Quote
There is definetly a wipe for Beta 3.9 and the start of gamma.

Contrary to what I've said before there may be a wipe for launch. This is being discussed here at the moment and would be due to code and galaxy changes between now and the end of gamma. I'll post when a decision has been made.

Michael

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=23758&page=165&p=1037177&viewfull=1#post1037177 (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=23758&page=165&p=1037177&viewfull=1#post1037177)

Hope they tell us in good time because, honestly, enjoying pissing around in SWTOR again and I'm not going to start playing E: D again if it's all going to get wiped in a month.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 20, 2014, 06:34:29 AM
I don't mean no disrespect, but you people (those of you who did) are crazy and have been crazy to play around with this so much before launch. You all know I am obsessed with it, and still I forced myself not to put more than 10 hours, max, over the last 6 months. Unfinished is unfinished, and I can only blame myself if I burn out over unfinished content before release.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 20, 2014, 06:48:14 AM
Who are you talking to?



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 20, 2014, 06:59:24 AM
I am sorry I included you because I thought the only people worrying about a wipe are those who played long enough to amass anything worth time or money. Same if you were going to start now. December 16th won't probably change much, but I stand by my point that considering how things are evolving it is a good idea to wait until the very last pre-launch patch before investing any real time in E:D.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 20, 2014, 08:06:57 AM
Oh yes, totally agree. Hence my previous post - previously they had hinted that they would try to avoid a wipe between Gamma and release (although that seems silly to me) and if that was going to be the case then I'd be tempted to start playing more. But if they're not sure then I'm not going to bother and carry on playing something else for a month.

As an aside, another cryptic but enticing quote from Brookes on the forums:

Quote
Quote
Quote Originally Posted by vjek

How many new ships are currently planned to be added to the game between now and December 16th?

Keep your eyes peeled for a future newsletter.

Michael

So going by yesterday's newsletter, Orca and Python today and then some more added in the run up to official release? That would be nice.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 20, 2014, 03:26:45 PM
Patch 3.9 is here.



NEW CONTENT/FEATURES

- Permits needed to access systems within excluded regions or specific systems requireing permits (like Sol)
- Missions can give permits as rewards
- Mission branching added
- Major faction missions added
- Added many new mission templates
- System states generate Unedintified Signal Sources and missions
- Multiple user voice comms support added
- Rare goods added
- Added imperial starport variants
- Add custom Earth and Mars to Sol
- Trade Route data for the current system is provided for free upon connecting to the Station Services
- Major faction (Imperial and Federation) missions added
- More variety for USSs added

Full Patch Notes (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=61341)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 20, 2014, 11:58:21 PM
Saying nothing. Don't wanna be accused of being a fun vampire.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 21, 2014, 12:29:36 AM
I don't think anyone is having that much fun yet anyway. These are good steps, and still not yet enough.

In the meantime, I wanna share this screenshot I took yesterday as I left the little outpost I was docked to. I couldn't help staying there for a good twenty minutes staring at the rising sun as it slowly came up in real time.


(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Screenshot_0006.jpg)



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 21, 2014, 12:59:34 AM
Very nice!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 21, 2014, 02:44:09 AM
The new trade route data function is interesting (in a "haven't yet played it so can't really give a full opinion about whether I think it's good, bad or indifferent").  If you are in a system (presumably docked) then you get the trade data from that system for free for a 24 hour period. You can buy trade data for a nearby system if you want (for about 100cr) and the effect is this (click to view):

(http://i.imgur.com/WXakkO8.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/WXakkO8.jpg)

The commodities screen now shows whether items are exported or imported to a particular system. Now I still think the UI is a little clunky to look at - no filters for a start - but it's a step in the right direction.  I also notice that the commodity description contains export destinations too.

The outfitting screen unfortunately looks much the same but has been reorganized and it's far easier to see whether there are items available for a particular slot.

Galaxy map system view now shows what services are available at stations e.g. shipyard, outfitting, rearm/repair etc.  Still no way of seeing what is sold where from what little I've seen.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 21, 2014, 04:22:01 AM
The commodities screen now shows whether items are exported or imported to a particular system.

Isn't that just a text version of the same information that was visible on the galaxy map as coloured arrows? Or am I missing something?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 21, 2014, 04:24:57 AM
Even if that was the case (and I don't know about it), it would still be a huge and much needed quality of life improvement. We need more of these too. Like the new outfit screen, I disagree with Draconian as I think the steps forward in that department are significant.

Still, need more life, more NPCs, more things to do and more feedback. And external cameras.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 21, 2014, 05:06:42 AM
Isn't that just a text version of the same information that was visible on the galaxy map as coloured arrows? Or am I missing something?

It may well be but the fact that it's no longer on just the Galaxy map makes it easier for traders. And no, I don't know if the info is now more accurate than it was nor whether it updates dynamically depending on commodity availability.  But it's definitely much improved in terms of giving traders information.  I haven't looked at the Galaxy map in detail nor to see what, if anything, has been updated about the trade route screen.

Like the new outfit screen, I disagree with Draconian as I think the steps forward in that department are significant.

Still, need more life, more NPCs, more things to do and more feedback. And external cameras.

Oh, I think the changes are significant, I just still don't like the outfit screen UI and think it's unnecessarily complicated.  In some respects. I don't think there's anything wrong with the old 1984 way of showing a list of what's available at the station rather than a list of all your available slots and then it taking multiple clicks to actually see what the station has.  It's ass over tit backwards in its design - but at least you can now easily see which slots might have something available for sale at the station

In terms of more life and things to do, there does appear to be more work done on the missions. One example was of a pilot with a mission geting contacted by a pirate at a USS  and told they were being set up by the mission giver and giving them an option to deliver their cargo to a different destination for more reward. Another player said he took an assassination mission and in one of the possible target systems, overhead (read!) some NPC comms chatter giving hints about the target's location.

As for story, I haven't got a clue if there's anything in there at the moment but that teaser in the newsletter this week, "Hengist Duval is sick" apparently refers to the Emperor on Achenar. I missed out on that piece of Elite lore because I never played FFE.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: calapine on November 21, 2014, 12:56:27 PM
No matter how crazy you are, there is always someone worse. € 4000 Elite setup:

(https://i.imgur.com/qUzZY5R.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/Bjwj5ZB.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/AXuHQ3V.jpg)

Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvNL695rJKo)

  • 3 beamers,
  • Track IR,
  • Leap Motion Controller,
  • HOTAS-Joystick Saitek X52 Pro,
  • Logitech G19 keyboard,
  • self-built touch-interfacing consisting of 3 Ventos 10.1 Surftabs
  • GPUs are 2 Radeon R9 290 Tri-X OC.
  • Soundsystem Logitech z 5500 5.1


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on November 21, 2014, 01:16:47 PM
So what I still really am not clear on after reading all this is:

1) Is there dynamism to trade? E.g., do commodity prices fluctuate, and do they fluctuate partially based on some kind of supply-demand mechanic? Or is just arbitrary and static--once you figure out a profitable trade route, you just do it again and again and again and again?

2) Is there any kind of "seeded" hand-built content out there in all the procedurally generated content? If you go exploring will you occasionally be surprised by strange artifacts, pirate bases, mysterious signals, weird derelicts, etc etc? Do missions sometimes take a surprising turn, or have a fun/cool scripted element that goes beyond FedEx/kill Foozle?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 21, 2014, 01:29:55 PM
Again, I've not played since beta 2 so some of this may have changed.

1) Is there dynamism to trade? E.g., do commodity prices fluctuate, and do they fluctuate partially based on some kind of supply-demand mechanic? Or is just arbitrary and static--once you figure out a profitable trade route, you just do it again and again and again and again?

Prices were changing, but not much, what was more common was that supply of a commodity would suddenly dry up at a particular station. However in general profitable trade routes were pretty much static. When supply did run out it would replenish not long later. It's claimed that the market is responsive to player actions, the only evidence of this I saw was the limited supply issue.


2) Is there any kind of "seeded" hand-built content out there in all the procedurally generated content? If you go exploring will you occasionally be surprised by strange artifacts, pirate bases, mysterious signals, weird derelicts, etc etc? Do missions sometimes take a surprising turn, or have a fun/cool scripted element that goes beyond FedEx/kill Foozle?

I found nothing like any of those things in the time I was playing. Except once, at a USS (unidentified signal source) there was a large NPC hauler ship flying around broadcasting that it was buying and selling ores and minerals. There was no way to actually interact with it other than shooting it.

That's it. And I've heard of nothing else from anyone either. If there is any hand-built stuff outside of the proc gen then it's either not live yet or nobody's found it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 21, 2014, 01:45:10 PM
1) Is there dynamism to trade? E.g., do commodity prices fluctuate, and do they fluctuate partially based on some kind of supply-demand mechanic? Or is just arbitrary and static--once you figure out a profitable trade route, you just do it again and again and again and again?

Pretty much yes, although so far it is all vs. AI as there's no real trade between players. Players trade affect the market prices, but as far as I know players cannot really trade with each other (although they can barter, in space). Latest patch introduced "Rare goods", which is a nice idea since they seem to be pretty rare and as the screenshot says they gain value the further you travel from the place where they are produced.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20rare%202.jpg)


Quote
2) Is there any kind of "seeded" hand-built content out there in all the procedurally generated content? If you go exploring will you occasionally be surprised by strange artifacts, pirate bases, mysterious signals, weird derelicts, etc etc? Do missions sometimes take a surprising turn, or have a fun/cool scripted element that goes beyond FedEx/kill Foozle?

The answer is... we don't know. Yesterday's patch is the one that shoud start the whole "dynamic galaxy" thing. It introduced what is possibly the foundations of this "seed" system, and they keep saying it will work exactly the way you worded it. Hard to say if this will happen in a month, or a year, or never. Right now, I'd say no it doesn't work, although there are reports since last patch about much more interesting branched missions (including one where you were supposed to deliver some stuff to a station, but you get interdicted by some pirate who tell you that you are being framed and scammed and you should sell the stuff to them instead. Also, reputation got introduced recently and that allows you to take missions you couldn't otherwise get, and at the same time losing the favour of enemy factions and so on. In their dreams, people helping some factions over others will make that faction take over the system and change politics, influencing market prices, storyline and all. But since the patch just launched it's hard to tell if this is already possible. It sounds like a good start, but once again, the whole system seems to be in its infancy.

Tomorrow there's another big patch, and even though they said there won't be many new features they mentioned a few new "goodies". At this point, every new tiny thing piles up to build the stack of what should be a good game at some point. Also, something is up their sleeves for the December 16th launch since they hinted to a "story" bit.


EDIT: Today's patch introduced "Increased the cool down for Frame Shifting to 40 seconds for all ships", which means that if you lose the interdiction minigame and got pulled out of supercruise, you can't just jump back in and escape as easily as you used before.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Venkman on November 21, 2014, 07:50:51 PM
No matter how crazy you are, there is always someone worse. € 4000 Elite setup:

  • 3 beamers,
  • Track IR,
  • Leap Motion Controller,
  • HOTAS-Joystick Saitek X52 Pro,
  • Logitech G19 keyboard,
  • self-built touch-interfacing consisting of 3 Ventos 10.1 Surftabs
  • GPUs are 2 Radeon R9 290 Tri-X OC.
  • Soundsystem Logitech z 5500 5.1

Can someone explain track IR to me? Last time I checked one out (I think it was Track IR), when I turned my head, it would rotate the POV on the monitor. So, a stationary monitor in front of me, Track IR headgear, when I turn my head to the left, the view changes on my screen.

That's very different than me looking left to actually look left. Instead, it's turning my head to the left but still keeping my eyes looking forward. Weird and dumb.

And the above guy's setup? That's cool and all, but why would it need track IR? Just look left?

What am I missing?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: calapine on November 21, 2014, 09:35:53 PM
Can someone explain track IR to me? Last time I checked one out (I think it was Track IR), when I turned my head, it would rotate the POV on the monitor. So, a stationary monitor in front of me, Track IR headgear, when I turn my head to the left, the view changes on my screen.

That's very different than me looking left to actually look left. Instead, it's turning my head to the left but still keeping my eyes looking forward. Weird and dumb.

And the above guy's setup? That's cool and all, but why would it need track IR? Just look left?

What am I missing?

People have described it as very nice for things like ArmA, as soldier and when flying a helicopter. When you (slightly) turn your head your character looks in that direction. Benefit of increased situational awareness.

As to what it exactly does in this setup, uhh...not sure, the same way I think. I remember seeing a YouTube of someone fighting with either Track IR or Rift. The pilots view-direction changed when trying to track a close and maneuvering enemy.

Edit: There we go, found it: Click me! I am a video! (http://youtu.be/uNrHX0CEnwk)

Edit2: Made some screenshots for the extra-lazy people.

(http://i.imgur.com/sJtPeQE.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/lHPZu2Q.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/Q7ySaus.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Kail on November 21, 2014, 10:27:23 PM
I don't know about this specific setup, but AFAIK you can use track IR to do some positional 3D / VR stuff.

Similar to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 21, 2014, 11:40:20 PM
The TrackIR actually works really well in E:D. The key is getting the sensitivity set right. If it's too low then it's exactly as you describe Darniaq, you turn your head to move the pilot's viewpoint but you have to turn your head too far and your eyes strain to stay on the monitor. If the sensitivity is too high then you have to keep infuriatingly still and get neck ache.

Get it just right though and it feels very natural. You follow a target on the screen with both head and eyes and the viewpoint shifts with it. It's superb for keeping a target in your reticule whilst dogfighting and it's really good for looking at the left & right dashboard panels in your cockpit.

I would say to get the best experience though that you need a reasonably big monitor. My monitor is a 28" (why are we still using inches for monitor/TV size ffs) and I sit about 2' (60cm) away from it. I tried it on the living room TV/PC setup, a 40" screen at a distance of 7', and it wasn't nearly as good. I reckon using it with a huge display like the guy above would be awesome :-)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on November 21, 2014, 11:40:42 PM
No matter how crazy you are, there is always someone worse. € 4000 Elite setup:

The funny thing is some people have spent alot more than that on another space sim and all they've gotten for it is (or rather will be) virtual.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 22, 2014, 01:01:43 AM
Plus, it's not like Elite is the only game he can play with that setup. He's still crazy ofc (or rich).  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 22, 2014, 01:08:29 PM
Official Presentation live right now from the some Musem of Aeronautics in England  (http://www.twitch.tv/elitedangerous) (sorry, didn't research on it).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: arnulf2 on November 22, 2014, 01:48:20 PM
1.00 Gamma got released. Also backer rewards are available now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 22, 2014, 02:02:59 PM
That live stream. Not a single person in the audience was less than 40 years old, which was definitely uncommon for a video game presentation. They also had one guy with a bug mask that was moving like a bug, one with a Napoleon hat, and one that was drinking whiskey from the bottle but was trying not to be caught on camera doing it.  :awesome_for_real:

About the game, they clearly hinted at the Thargoids, they mentioned again a storyline involving the Emperor being sick, and the only real new thing they showcasted was an Imperial Capital ship (Majestic Class) randomly teleporting in and engaging three players in what looked like a boss battle. The fake live action and communication between the players was as pathetic as the Star Citizen's presentations. At least the battle seemed authentic and happening in the same client we have in our hands.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Venkman on November 23, 2014, 09:17:43 AM
[spoiler]
Edit: There we go, found it: Click me! I am a video! (http://youtu.be/uNrHX0CEnwk)

The TrackIR actually works really well in E:D. The key is getting the sensitivity set right.

Ah that makes sense now. From the video I could see if I turned just slightly, a whole set of UI elements can appear in what is otherwise either offscreen space, or would need to clutter my main UI.

Haven't really paid much attention to this tech because I haven't seen a game that really harnessed it. Kinda like why I still have a 16 year old MS Sidewinder kicking around for those occasions when I grab a recent version of Freespace 2.

But Elite is looking pretty awesome. I didn't really care about the totally-offline single player thing they just nixed anyway.

This would give me a reason for a track IR and a new joystick.

Just don't call it a "controller"  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on November 23, 2014, 04:10:18 PM
Screw the track IR, I am going to go with Voice Attack and an Oculus Rift.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on November 23, 2014, 10:04:37 PM
I've decided I'm not buying this till the new year, mainly as any problems with always online will be ironed out by then.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on November 28, 2014, 01:41:10 AM
The latest newsletter contained, among other things, a player-submitted screenshot of Jupiter:

(http://i.imgur.com/0i1k0sM.jpg)

Is it just me or would you not have chosen a shot that actually looked like Jupiter rather than every single other ringed planet in the game?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 28, 2014, 02:46:52 AM
The latest newsletter contained, among other things, a player-submitted screenshot of Jupiter:

(http://i.imgur.com/0i1k0sM.jpg)

Is it just me or would you not have chosen a shot that actually looked like Jupiter rather than every single other ringed planet in the game?

You're right, it doesn't look anything like Jupiter at all. In fact, it distinctly looks more like Saturn to me...!  :why_so_serious:

What you may be missing, however, is the other information in the picture. I think that yellow star just to the top and left of centre is Betelgeuse because that nebula looks awfully like Barnard's Loop. That would make that the constellation of Orion as seen from our solar system.

Personally I think that's damn clever!  :grin:

EDIT: in fact, I'm sure it is - because that looks distinctly like Orion's Belt in the middle of the nebula. Two bright stars near each other (Alnitak and Mintaka) with a slightly dimmer star (Alnilam - although I don't think it should be that dim) in the middle.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 28, 2014, 02:56:57 AM
The Jupiter rings have raised more than one eyebrow. Still, they exist in real life and while they are not that bright right now Frontier can claim that in 1000 year our system's planets will look a bit different from what they know now. Similarly, Mars has been terraformed and in the game it now looks pretty much like a smaller Earth, and Saturn's rings are surprisingly fainter than what we are used to see in pictures.

Anyway, yeah, I don't complain but I would have chosen much more familiar looks for our solar system, considering is the only familiar one out of 400 billion. Seriously, the astronomical aspects of Elite Dangerous are hardly a thing to moan about.

If you don't mind some spoilers, here's a quick trip through our system, with a final landing on Abraham Lincoln starport (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Um56EDQ-o).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on November 28, 2014, 03:16:34 AM
The Jupiter rings have raised more than one eyebrow. Still, they exist in real life and while they are not that bright right now Frontier can claim that in 1000 year our system's planets will look a bit different from what they know now. Similarly, Mars has been terraformed and in the game it now looks pretty much like a smaller Earth.

Anyway, yeah, I don't complain but I would have chosen much more familiar looks for our solar system, considering is the only familiar one out of 400 billion. Seriously, the astronomical aspects of Elite Dangerous are hardly a thing to moan about.

If you don't mind some spoilers, here's a quick trip through our system, with a final landing on Abraham Lincoln starport (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Um56EDQ-o).

Now I've learned something! :D


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on December 01, 2014, 10:35:05 AM
I could have sworn that Betelgeuse is a red giant?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on December 01, 2014, 11:27:18 AM
If you say it three times fast, it shows up and swallows your planetary system whole.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on December 01, 2014, 02:53:28 PM
I could have sworn that Betelgeuse is a red giant?

It is but to the naked eye it's more yellow-orange. Here's a photo of Barnard's Loop (and the Horsehead Nebula) with Betelgeuse quite prominent in the top left and Rigel the bright blue-white star in the bottom right (click for bigger version)

(http://i.imgur.com/PaN4KNQ.jpg) (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Orion_Head_to_Toe.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Thrawn on December 03, 2014, 05:16:11 PM
Been starting to look into this more, reading up on it, reading most of this thread, watching videos, etc.

I'm getting the impression that it's very pretty and has made some great progress and has some great ideas but currently I'm just not seeing much actual fun or much replay value in the Beta 3 game play videos I've watched.  They mostly are all the exact same videos of someone maybe buying something, undocking, flying around a bunch, maybe shooting an NPC some, docking again, repeat for hours.

Am I missing something or is this game just not worth the $50 even as a launch title yet?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on December 03, 2014, 07:56:42 PM
So, I decided to go ahead and get this a few weeks ago.  The question you need ask yourself, to an approximation, is - am I willing to pay 50 bucks for an updated version of Freelancer.  They've added some things in the gamma patches to add more missions and the random signals in space that you can go check out, but I haven't actually done those yet so I can't comment on them or their replayability.

For my part, I'm enjoying cruising around in a spaceship.  The game is well put together and enjoyable for what it is.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Thrawn on December 03, 2014, 08:55:24 PM
am I willing to pay 50 bucks for an updated version of Freelancer. 

That would be an easy sell for me then.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 04, 2014, 12:33:33 AM
To me it's worth a 100 buck even in its present state but to lots of people it is not worth a 20 for exactly the reasons you mentioned, Thrawn. The thing is, stuff is gonna be added, but right now as we said multiple times it is very much like a trucking simulation with some dogfighting. Granted, it's all amazingly executed but definitely leaning on the dry side of things. I still tell all my friends to not get it now and wait and treat this as an Early Access game despite the official release scheduled for next week.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 08, 2014, 08:01:01 AM
Frontier just confirmed (http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=70786&p=1172609&viewfull=1#post1172609) that there won't be another wipe coming before launch. So lots of beta backers will be starting off on launch day with millions of credits and high-end ships already.

Seems like another nail in the coffin of multiplayer in the game to me.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on December 08, 2014, 08:10:19 AM
I think this needs to be repeated. There are many interviews where Braben explains that the point of multiplayer is almost entirely intended to be for small cooperative groups.  They have never given any kind of nod towards competitive multiplayer other than maybe some kind of leader board or the occasional new article on the bulletin board.

People looking for anything remotely resembling competitive pvp or twitchy Eve have hitched their hopes to the wrong game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 08, 2014, 08:17:04 AM
Tell that to the vast numbers of people on the official forums who continually tout pirate-style gameplay as the Best Thing Ever. I don't understand putting in systems like player interdiction and then not properly supporting the resultant gameplay that will emerge.

And if small group co-op is the (or even *a*) goal why are there STILL no actual grouping mechanics beyond sharing the same instance? No bounty sharing, no group content, no group missions, no group travel mechanisms.

Edit: Also, the idea of group jumping isn't happening now: "We're actually pulling away from the idea of drive slaving, for a couple of reasons. Technically it's pretty treacherous. Also, we are grown a little cold on it's actual usage, looking at how the game is played. So, sorry, it's not on the cards. instead, we want to try and make it as obvious and easy as possible to understand where your wing is and how to get to them."


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on December 08, 2014, 09:24:23 AM
Yeah, the game definitely has its issues.  A friend and I have had some trouble playing together, but at the end of the day we're both still enjoying it.  It's a nice relaxing game to play.

Also, they did wipe not too long ago, so it isn't as if people are going to have months and months of an advantage.  And I'm not even really sure what that advantage even means in a game like this.   Unless I'm playing on the open server, I never have to give two shits about any other player who has been obsessively playing for the month before launch.  I can just play on my own or with friends, and then if we want to go on the open server at some point with our stuff we can.  In that kind of set up, where your single player and multiplayer character are the same I don't really see why a bunch of people playing for a month before you would really make a huge difference.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 08, 2014, 10:39:45 AM
I think the lack of a wipe is the nail in the coffin to what I would have liked for Elite Dangerous to be, meaning much more EVE-like. But honetly they have said a million times that it was never their intention to make it competitive and proof of that was that they let in the game the  semi-cheating ability to go solo in your own instance whenever you want and earn money against the AI that you could then eventually use against others when you felt comfortable PvPing. So yeah, lots are sad cause their expectations have been crushed, and you could count me among those who were hoping for more, but on this specific topic they have never lied and have been quite coherent with their original statements. And not even the elimination of the offline mode (while it is still possible to play solo) is not a contradiction of those original plans.

It's an non-competitive space MMO with 100% consensual PvP.


Quote
And if small group co-op is the (or even *a*) goal why are there STILL no actual grouping mechanics beyond sharing the same instance? No bounty sharing, no group content, no group missions, no group travel mechanisms.

They addressed that a lot last Sturday. All the things you listed will be implemented around February. Except for "group travel" which honestly is pure bullshit and I am personally very glad they decided to cut it. What's to like in an automated "follow" function in a game of this kind? They cut it because it doesn't fit the design, and I agree.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 09, 2014, 12:39:14 AM
Meh, I've heard too much "it's coming" and "wait and let them implement things" from this game's fans now. Releasing without basic group functionality in a game that is repeatedly advertised as multiplayer isn't something I'd handwave away with any other dev team, I'm not about to do it with this game just because I loved Elite when i was 14.

The last month or so has been rife with exploits being used in-game, lots of people have skipped weeks and weeks of grinding (the mainstay of the game) by using them, making 10's of milions of Cr in hours, and none of that is going to be wiped. I don't think that would be acceptable in a single-player game, and Braben and others can use the "it's solo if you want" excuse as much as they like, but then they can't go around trumpeting the wonderful multiplayer massive universe all the time too.

Is the economy affected by other players? If so then it's fucked from the outset because of all the un-wiped exploited cash out there. If not then they need to stop with all the bullshit about a shared galaxy.

It doesn't matter that people have 10's of millions on launch day but we can't have an offline mode? It's one or the other, if it's single-player then advertise it as so. If it's multiplayer then fix the exploits, wipe the servers on launch day and implement proper multiplayer features that a game released in 2014 should have.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 09, 2014, 01:50:05 AM
The last month or so has been rife with exploits being used in-game, lots of people have skipped weeks and weeks of grinding (the mainstay of the game) by using them, making 10's of milions of Cr in hours, and none of that is going to be wiped. I don't think that would be acceptable in a single-player game

What? Single player games have cheats and god-mode codes available since before they launch and there's nothing wrong with it. How would that not be acceptable in a single player game?

Now, this one is not just a single-player game (although it is, always-online mode is to prevent piracy even though they won't ever admit it) but as we said they keyword is non-competitive. I can't stress enough how much I would have liked it differently, but it is what they always said it was going to be (except for a true offline play-from-your-cabin-in-the-woods mode), so I feel I can't really hold a grudge to a fifty years old developer rooted in the pre-internet era.

Group functionalities? They will come soon as they said but personally I don't think they are even needed. For the most part they are the offspring of the same MMORPG generation that has been hurting games across the board for the last five years or so and they would and will make this game feel "artificial". You can still play with friends and do everything together. Sure, some tools will be appreciated but the big big big problem with Elite: D is its lack of life and engaging long term goals, not the lack of auto-follow, party window or shared quests.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ginaz on December 09, 2014, 02:17:06 AM


Now, this one is not just a single-player game (although it is, always-online mode is to prevent piracy even though they won't ever admit it) but as we said they keyword is non-competitive. I can't stress enough how much I would have liked it differently, but it is what they always said it was going to be (except for a true offline play-from-your-cabin-in-the-woods mode), so I feel I can't really hold a grudge to a fifty years old developer rooted in the pre-internet era.



If it has pvp, then it is competitive.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 09, 2014, 02:51:38 AM
OK let's change tack slightly with my argument here - what are the benefits to the game and the game's release by *not* wiping?

The only benefit I can see is to butter up the existing beta/gamma testers more. Regardless of whether or not you view the game as single- or multi-player the forums will be filled with annoyed new players who feel that they are disadvantaged further by not having a pre-launch wipe. I regularly see people posting proudly about how they were the first player to reach such-and-such a place. There is (or was, not sure if it's still in, correct me if I'm wrong) a bonus to discovering a system first in the exploration game. There are plenty of players who will insist that open multi is where the "proper" game is and will only play in that mode, as well as continuing to argue that there should be better rewards for open-multi-only players. Even if those arguments are ignored by FD, there will always be a competitive edge to sections of the community.

I can see no reason NOT to do a wipe at this point since it is far more likely to appease (to some extent) a lot more players than not wiping will.

My points about grouping/multiplayer functionality are more about the schizophrenic nature of E:D at the moment than anything else really. Is it single player or multiplayer, well it's kind of both which actually means it's doing a half-arsed job of both options IMO.

And yes, I completely agree that the dead, sterile galaxy and paucity of actual game are far more serious problems but I think they stem from similar places, i.e. a lack of creative vision and a lack of appreciation of how games have changed in 30 years.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 09, 2014, 06:23:32 AM
I think that they should wipe. It's really silly that they don't, and I wonder what's the reasoning too.

I guess I am just not surprised at this point because so many decisions from FD have been quite unusual for nowadays standards. Luckily given the nature of the game the lack of a wipe is not a big deal as it would be even in a more traditional MMORPG where the world feels "used" if you don't get in on day 1.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 09, 2014, 07:36:12 AM
so many decisions from FD have been quite unusual for nowadays standards.

Amen to that, they're certainly a very strange group of developers.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Daeven on December 09, 2014, 05:52:09 PM
Well I just had a month without decent internet and all I could play was offline stuff, so it is a thing.

I mean, I know it's a thing.  But if you're someone who really wants to play solo Elite, barring this kind of frankly rare scenario these days, you can still do it.  I guess you could just be upset enough with them for the decision that you don't buy the thing in principle but "I have no interest in online play" seems odd when "online play" no longer means "multiplayer" and I get the feeling that people don't want to play multiplayer.

2 Things

1 - I have no interest in ONCE AGAIN explaining different playstyles, environment or personal tastes to you.  YOU are not ME.  It's that simple.
2 - I eagerly awaiting this thing getting released on consoles entirely in offline mode.

FUCK Always Online.  It's a Lie and It's Always a Lie.

You fuckers jumped up and down on me for Diablo 3 for fucking ages and it all played out pretty much as some of us here predicted.  Get Always Online To Fuck.

Also, once NN gets raped, always online is just gonna be another tax.

Know whats really amazing about Always Online mode? Playing via wireless and having the connection drop during your SINGLE PLAYER FUCKING GAME and having the game exit because your SINGLE MOTHERFUCKING PLAYER GAME can't talk to the universe.

Yeah.

I love that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on December 09, 2014, 06:51:51 PM
It wasn't a problem for Diablo 3! :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Daeven on December 09, 2014, 07:48:31 PM
It wasn't a problem for Diablo 3! :awesome_for_real:

*sounds of explosions in the distance....*


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 10, 2014, 03:37:11 AM
There's an effort going on (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=71327) to test the persistent universe by shifting faction control of a system. I'll be keeping an eye on this, interested to see what effect player actions can have!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 10, 2014, 03:49:50 AM
Brace for disappointment in 3... 2... 1...!

Seriously, I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if anything good came out of that. From personal experience, and some Dev posts, I take it all the cool parts about the persistent galaxy and dynamic events are still in their infancy. This is a game that should definitely bear the Early Access tag, and like DayZ for example, should be backed, purchased, supported, and then set aside for actual play and enjoyment not before late 2015. There's simply not enough content right now to prevent burning out quickly and become disillusioned, which would be a pity.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 10, 2014, 08:32:46 AM
Who the hell makes a Launch Trailer with "no actual footage" in it these days?

Frontier Developments, that's who. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLAGI-LdNyI)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Thrawn on December 10, 2014, 11:01:15 AM
Who the hell makes a Launch Trailer with "no actual footage" in it these days?

Frontier Developments, that's who. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLAGI-LdNyI)

The community response to the video seems to be very negative.  Lots of "Cool video but extremely misleading of what the game actually is." type comments.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 10, 2014, 11:39:09 AM
That video is an insult, seriously. Pathetic.

To clarify:

- It does not represent the game at all, to the point of not actually showing a single frame from the actual game. I thought that kind of stuff died about ten years ago, maybe fifteen. (Mount & Blade Vikings just did a live-action trailer with no game footage.... still...)
- The music does not fit with the game one bit. This is not "Need For Sp-ace".

Horrible move by Frontier. Worrisome.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on December 10, 2014, 11:59:51 AM
So all those ship flying scenes isn't what the game looks like?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on December 10, 2014, 12:03:57 PM
Man, fuck that space station.  I'd take my space-crates somewhere else.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 10, 2014, 01:37:48 PM
So all those ship flying scenes isn't what the game looks like?


Oh it looks great. But it's not that lively, not that colourful, not that fast and agile. It's the difference you can imagine between "concept" and "actual gameplay".



EDIT:

New patch today, they added the Lakon Type 7 and another classic design, the Adder, which in 1993 looked pretty much like this:

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20adder%201993.gif)


and now looks like this:

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Adder%20G8iENNT%202.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 10, 2014, 02:56:05 PM
Who the hell makes a Launch Trailer with "no actual footage" in it these days?

Frontier Developments, that's who. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLAGI-LdNyI)

What the shitballs? Man, I'd play that game, that looks great! When's it coming out?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on December 10, 2014, 02:57:45 PM
The music choice for that trailer is, quite frankly, incredible, and not in a good way. What were they smoking? It's like those fucking Twitch streamers who think that putting some obscene metal/hard rock music over [any game of your choice, really :P] will make them look and sound cooler (yeah, I get it, Fifa 15 ambient sounds are not like a real stadium, but I don't need to hear Black Sabbath while watching Ronaldo dribbling someone, thank ya).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 10, 2014, 03:00:45 PM
Trailer with added honesty (http://youtu.be/DZeO-4F45WM).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on December 11, 2014, 05:17:19 AM
New Adder is terrible, not boxy enough and looks too much like the Hauler (same manufacturer I believe so at least that makes sense.)

That said I wasn't thrilled by the new Asp or the Panther either


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 12, 2014, 02:11:20 AM
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Father%20Christmas%20jpg.jpg)


 :why_so_serious: :why_so_serious: :why_so_serious:



EDIT: resized.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on December 12, 2014, 02:53:40 AM
Santa Clause is gunning you down


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on December 12, 2014, 06:56:58 AM
Everyone's been naughty in the Elite universe.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tmp on December 12, 2014, 09:25:00 AM
He's so gonna put a lump of coal in your exhaust pipe.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: climbjtree on December 12, 2014, 03:17:18 PM
So what's the verdict on this now? I love space games, though the last one that I really got into was Freelancer.

Is this going to scratch the itch or just make me angry I spent 50 dollhairs?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 12, 2014, 03:50:43 PM
My verdict right now is that it's cool but has very short longevity. Waiting 4 to 6 months will guarantee an amazing game and no frustration. Treat it as an Early Access game. Meaning: wait.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: climbjtree on December 12, 2014, 05:02:20 PM
You and I both play MWO, which people generally thing is a pile of doodoo.

I have the tolerance for MWO, based on the first statement - do I have the tolerance for this?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on December 12, 2014, 05:18:12 PM
You and I both play MWO, which people generally thing is a pile of doodoo.

I have the tolerance for MWO, based on the first statement - do I have the tolerance for this?

If you:

  • Like the idea of flying a space ship, twitch style, with beautiful graphics.
  • Enjoy space exploration.
  • Are not turned off by the sometimes sameness of procedurally generated things.
  • Have a tolerance for games under development and the bugs that can pop up.
  • Can play an unfinished game happily while you contemplate future potential.

Then you should buy it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 16, 2014, 01:16:41 AM
So I had a dream last night/this morning, in which I was a young starship pilot making my way up to an orbital station for the first time from the planet I was born and raised on. Somehow (my dream lacked the details) I'd acquired both the money and rudimentary skills to purchase my own ship.

In the tiny, cramped elevator up from the shuttle bay to the main station mezzanine I got cold feet and tried to make the lift go down again but I just got laughed at by the other people in there with me and then the doors opened onto the seething main station entrance level, packed with thousands of people (reminded me of something from Mass Effect or Babylon 5). It was full of life and lights and colours and fear, that I naively thought of as excitement.

Then I was a small child in a rudimentary house on a planet's surface, with an elderly man explaining to me why we lived in poverty and squalor whilst the skies sometimes rang and flashed with distant battles. He explained that the star pilots were all dead. When they died in battle their minds were resurrected into cloned bodies (yeah, straight out of EVE, my dreams aren't very original) but he believed that their souls died with them in the first death. The incredible cost of the ships that were destroyed with such abandon to fight the wars of the Empire, the Federation, whoeverthefuckelse left all of us poor planet-bound bastards living in mud, ruled over by armies of the dead, in a galaxy ruined by war. He said there were tales of the pilot that had never died, that was so skilled and lucky that he or she (nobody knew) had never been cloned, the last living star pilot surrounded by the coldness of a space filled with corpses.

Then I was the young pilot, in my cramped, beaten up, clanky ship for the first time, hard metal controls, energy beams flashing across my vision, red warning lights blossoming all over the worn consoles. Cracks appearing at the edges of the ancient-looking canopy in front of me, a whistling noise of escaping air and crushing, freezing terror filling me as I realised I was about to die for what would be the first of many times. The dreadful knowledge that I was joining the legions of the soulless dead, destroying the lives of the millions below for my own glory.


Then I woke up and remembered that Elite: Dangerous launches today and I prepared to be disappointed, again, by reality.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on December 16, 2014, 05:49:44 AM
Version 1.00 (aka release) it's out; no significant patch notes (although the galaxy-wide ever changing story arc is now unlocked; also, looks like the GalNet news network is broadcasting news in-game) :

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=76494



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: climbjtree on December 16, 2014, 06:07:28 AM
My pre-order is still "processing," whatever that means.

What it translates to is the game is out and I can't download it! I was hoping to download it while I was at work, but oh well. Release day and all that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 16, 2014, 06:52:16 AM
David Braben pushes the launch button. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22DAO4dl74w)

I have to say, all of a sudden my mind went back once again to 1984 (1985 for me), when I read about Elite for the first time and when I finally got my cassette for the C64. Today's launch is disappointing because I want more, I've become spoiled and nothing is ever enough. But when I think about the thirty years that this franchise has been with me, and the old blurry black and white photos of Braben that were circulating on pre-pre-internet magazines back then painting him like some sort of obscure fictional videogame genius...

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20old%20article%201984%20edit2.jpg)


(and I looked like this)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/Drew%201986%20small.jpg)


well... I can't help but feel weirdly emotional about today, that silly button pushing video, and 30 years of Elite having been a significant part of the 40 years of myself. I often say that videogames saved my life and the few who know me and my real life understand why that's not a joke. Fucking stupid stubborn David Braben will never know, but he's been part of it. Thanks for pushing that button. (Now go get put some content in the fucking game, alright?).



EDIT: Ian Bell, I love you too  :heart:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 16, 2014, 07:08:45 AM
(and I looked like this)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/Drew%201986%20small.jpg)

Great photo!  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: climbjtree on December 16, 2014, 03:39:01 PM
Alright, who wants to take a fledgling space trucker under their wing? That learning curve...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on December 16, 2014, 04:39:43 PM
What would you like to know?  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: climbjtree on December 16, 2014, 06:14:56 PM
I meant physically! I am just running cheap trade routes because I can only mine half a cargo hold before I get crushed by pirates and I'm not a good enough pilot to be a pirate myself :/


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on December 17, 2014, 02:46:44 AM
Wow - you're mining already? That's good going. Might come to you for tips!  :grin: I'm kicking around in LHS 3447, Eravate and Kremainn at the moment. I reset my save and am still in a sidey but happy to try and meet up. I am currently running missions for the Feds but am beginning to suspect that they may not be as squeaky clean as all that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 17, 2014, 04:16:42 AM
FD have announced the Race To Elite Competition (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=76535).

£1000 prize to be the first to reach Elite in combat, exploration or trading, £10,000 to be first to all 3. Claiming a £1000 prize excludes you from the £10,000 prize. You must clear your save after beta to be eligible, so the only advantages beta/alpha backers get is knowledge/experience and a better starting ship. You also have to play entirely in 'open' mode.

I'm interested to know what you all think of this.

It'll come as no surprise, I'm sure, that I am not a fan of the idea. I think E:D is nothing but a massive grinding game and this only encourages that kind of tedious gameplay in my view. It also feels like a slap in the face to those of us who supported development to the tune of £100 each or more only to see such a large chunk of money being spent on buying support instead of improving the game. The open mode requirement is also indicative of the schizophrenic approach to game design decisions taken by FD. It's going to encourage massive griefing in open mode and as a result will drive players to hide away in the galaxy so as not to be found by other players while they grind to Elite. That's not what an MMO is about in my opinion.

I keep thinking I should jump back in and give the game another go now that it's released, but the half eye I keep on the forums is enough to tell me that not a single one of my issues with it have been addressed and that several mechanics have been made *worse* since I last played in beta 2. I feel sad that I've lost all interest in actually playing it myself any more.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on December 17, 2014, 05:00:58 AM
It'll come as no surprise, I'm sure, that I am not a fan of the idea.

Nope, no surprise at all.  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yoru on December 17, 2014, 05:03:29 AM
It also feels like a slap in the face to those of us who supported development to the tune of £100 each or more only to see such a large chunk of money being spent on buying support instead of improving the game.

The above makes no sense. If you think £13,000 is a "big chunk" out of a development budget, you've got no idea what you're talking about. It's probably coming from the marketing budget, and £13k for marketing won't even get you some shitty prerolls on unpopular Youtube channels. From the development budget, £13k is maybe the price of two months' full-time employment for a mid-level artist.

As for the actual contest, it's silly, but it's by no means the dumbest thing anyone's ever done in the history of MMO marketing.

Personally, I've stopped playing just because I get the overwhelming feeling of "meh" whenever I glance at the desktop icon. I could maybe spend 30 minutes running some spacegoods around, or I could go read a decent book/play a quick game of FIFA or CSGO/get a beer. Lonely catass games hold no allure any more, and I'm disappointed that this game ended up as a lonely catass experience.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 17, 2014, 05:17:56 AM
The above makes no sense. If you think £13,000 is a "big chunk" out of a development budget, you've got no idea what you're talking about. It's probably coming from the marketing budget, and £13k for marketing won't even get you some shitty prerolls on unpopular Youtube channels. From the development budget, £13k is maybe the price of two months' full-time employment for a mid-level artist.

I knew that would get some flak. Yes, I know it's a tiny drop in a development budget, but it's still galling when so little seems to be being done to address the game's glaring flaws.

It feels like bribing the playerbase in a cheap, shoddy way. It feels like, as you say, just marketing, when the product they're trying to sell is fundamentally broken. When the things they told us early in the game's development have turned out to just be lies.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Comstar on December 17, 2014, 05:31:16 AM
FD have announced the Race To Elite Competition (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=76535).

£1000 prize to be the first to reach Elite in combat, exploration or trading, £10,000 to be first to all 3. Claiming a £1000 prize excludes you from the £10,000 prize. You must clear your save after beta to be eligible, so the only advantages beta/alpha backers get is knowledge/experience and a better starting ship. You also have to play entirely in 'open' mode.

Won't it just be botted??


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yoru on December 17, 2014, 05:32:51 AM
A video game you thought you'd like didn't turn out as well as you'd hoped. Move on.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 17, 2014, 05:47:02 AM
I really don't think much of the contest as I see it as pure marketing, and for advertising that's pretty cheap. I really don't think that many people will even try to do that anyway so I can't see it as an attempt to hide the shortcomings of the game under a blanket of imaginary money.

About everything else, I can't repeat this enough: the game core elements are nothing short of fantastic. The content and the features are so lacking I treat it as an Early Access game. I am pretty sure it will be my favourite game of 2016. Hopefully late 2015. Right now, I protect my investment by NOT PLAYING it until it's more fleshed out.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on December 17, 2014, 07:20:10 AM
It really does look great. It's just sad that they didn't roll up their sleeves and put life into the universe it offers.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Draegan on December 17, 2014, 07:29:25 AM
I thought about giving this game a shot today just to check it out because I finally have some time and desire to try a new game.

It's $60.

Nope.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on December 17, 2014, 07:36:57 AM
It really does look great. It's just sad that they didn't roll up their sleeves and put life into the universe it offers.

Is that a comment based on what you've read or from playing since yesterday?

I spent a few hours in game last night and have never seen it so busy with either NPCs or players. Supercruise felt like a busy road with the amount of ships around. People have been complaining that "the story hasn't started" even though there are two systems named on the Galnet news and from a cursory glance at the forums, it seems things are kicking off in those systems. The fight for Lugh even attracted David Braben yesterday who announced he got killed by another player (after shooting first!) so that's a player driven event which loads of people are taking part in and is getting developer attention.

So I'm not entirely sure what lack of life in the universe you're talking about. What are you actually expecting?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: murdoc on December 17, 2014, 07:37:03 AM
How playable is this with a keyboard and mouse?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 17, 2014, 08:00:10 AM
Very absolutely playable with mouse and keyboard. In fact, I still claim it works better than a HOTAS (although not even remotely as cool) because it's hands down easier to aim with the mouse than with a joystick. The important part is that you have to tweak a few things in the options as the default M+K setting was asinine last time they reset mine. Make sure to put the Yaw on the mouse horizontal axis and the roll on A and D keys. Also, make sure to activate the "mouse widget" or you won't have a visual clue of your heading and steering. Finally, there's a setting that has a name I can't remember that allows your ship to keep turning as long as the mouse widget is not centered. If you don't activate that, you will have to keep moving and recentering your mouse like a crazy person as if you were using a trackball. So fiddle with it and you will get an amazingly enjoyable M+K experience.

About life in the Galaxy, sorry but I am a fanboi of this game and still I am not OK with the amount of content and "dynamic" events so far. Sure there were lots of players clustered near the startng zones, but that means nothing on launch day. The galaxy is immense and unless they can provide reasons for people to hang around certain areas, it won't work. Also, the Galnet event is nothing new or original, as it's exactly the same "Conflict zone" we have been playing since alpha, now with different faction names. And on top of that, wow, not only it is hard to PvP cause everyone hides in Solo play or behind all the complications of bounties and the likes, but the game doesn't provide any tool to prevent people from fleeing, and since you lose your ship when you die pretty much everyone flees as soon as another human approaches them EVEN IN THE WAR ZONES. It doesn't help that the AI is very bad and it's super easy to kill the most dangerous and powerful ships in the game as long as they are computer controlled and you have got yourself a decent vessel.

Finally, I am pretty sure that when people talk about this game being lifeless, they don't just refer to the lack of players, but more about the immense sandbox we have to play with where the stations are nothing but a menu and a list. Not a single NPC, not a piece of lore being handed to you thanks to anything you have done, nothing. Everything is incredibly mechanical and weirdly enough it ends up making you feel exactly like the biggest complain about EVE: "you are just a spaceship". Sure, we are the pilots, but where are the other pilots? If you look into other ships cockpits you'll find them empty cause FD hasn't worked on the models yet. There are no faces of NPCs giving you quests as there were in Elite 2 and Elite 3, there is no external view of any kind so you will NEVER be able to see your ship let alone your paintjobs (except when you are outfitting it, then you get a few goofy closed up and fixed cameras), and there are no specific agents that you can develop a personal imaginary work relationship with, only very impersonal and procedurally generated faction, or places you can call home since they are all just the same identical thing only with a different name. It is so proudly procedurally generated, which means GENERATED BY A MACHINE, that life, the human element, has been forgotten or not yet implemented. It violently needs at least some more handcrafted stuff. Which, interestinly enough, is what some of us have been saying since the very first few pages of this very thread back in 2012.

I can't stress enough how much I love what is already in this game. I love every bit of what is IN it. But I also hate that there's a billion things that should be in it at all costs, and yet are not.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: climbjtree on December 17, 2014, 08:54:36 AM
Wow - you're mining already? That's good going. Might come to you for tips!  :grin: I'm kicking around in LHS 3447, Eravate and Kremainn at the moment. I reset my save and am still in a sidey but happy to try and meet up. I am currently running missions for the Feds but am beginning to suspect that they may not be as squeaky clean as all that.

If you want to link up for some mining, I can pull in around 14k on a full hold of Gallite. So if you mine and I haul, or I mine and you deter the pirates, then I think we could make a decent amount of money between us.

e: What's your name in game? I'll add you to my friends list. I'm in as "rldmoto"


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: murdoc on December 17, 2014, 09:50:06 AM
Very absolutely playable with mouse and keyboard. In fact, I still claim it works better than a HOTAS (although not even remotely as cool) because it's hands down easier to aim with the mouse than with a joystick. The important part is that you have to tweak a few things in the options as the default M+K setting was asinine last time they reset mine. Make sure to put the Yaw on the mouse horizontal axis and the roll on A and D keys. Also, make sure to activate the "mouse widget" or you won't have a visual clue of your heading and steering. Finally, there's a setting that has a name I can't remember that allows your ship to keep turning as long as the mouse widget is not centered. If you don't activate that, you will have to keep moving and recentering your mouse like a crazy person as if you were using a trackball. So fiddle with it and you will get an amazingly enjoyable M+K experience.


Great info - thanks!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: climbjtree on December 17, 2014, 12:47:43 PM
Mining with a single-hopper refinery is pretty rough. Luckily an upgrade isn't that expensive, and 1 ton of palladium nets you about 13.5k.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on December 17, 2014, 05:09:43 PM
It really does look great. It's just sad that they didn't roll up their sleeves and put life into the universe it offers.

Is that a comment based on what you've read or from playing since yesterday?

I spent a few hours in game last night and have never seen it so busy with either NPCs or players. Supercruise felt like a busy road with the amount of ships around. People have been complaining that "the story hasn't started" even though there are two systems named on the Galnet news and from a cursory glance at the forums, it seems things are kicking off in those systems. The fight for Lugh even attracted David Braben yesterday who announced he got killed by another player (after shooting first!) so that's a player driven event which loads of people are taking part in and is getting developer attention.

So I'm not entirely sure what lack of life in the universe you're talking about. What are you actually expecting?

Mostly what I've read, a bit on looking over the shoulder of a friend. I think what I'm hoping for is what Falconeer wrote about--some sense of a peppering of dynamic, hand-created content in among the procedurally generated universe. Not just lots of people logging in.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Draegan on December 18, 2014, 03:07:56 PM
I broke down due to boredom and bought this.

It's actually not bad however generic. I spent the first few hours learning how to do everything they tell you how to do in some youtube videos on their website. Wish I found those first. I managed to find a system and do a carrgo mission for a few hundred credit. Did some trading for a bit more.

Figured out how to use OCR reader shit. Pretty slick if not a pain in the ass.

I haven't found combat yet. 

I can see the allure of this game for a lot of people. It's just you out there doing shit. Would be a great game if it had more multiplayer aspects like creating industrial stuff. More EVE like I guess?  The only thing that I dislike is that you can't see your ship, or weapons, or anything and that might make getting new ships not feel as awesome. But I get you feel the awesome in bigger cargo holds or faster turning or weapons stuff.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on December 18, 2014, 04:11:12 PM
You can see your ship in the outfitting section of stations, but that is about it.

I've been playing with a friend of mine and we have plenty of fun basically just flying around looking for USSs.  Sometimes they are nothing, sometimes they are cool.  I wouldn't over look what's going on in Supercruise.  It can feel like it's just dead time spent traveling, but a lot of the game stems from there.  Interdiction, finding the procedurally generated stuff, etc. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on December 18, 2014, 04:30:04 PM
Class act by Chris Roberts on SC main page:

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14384-Congratulations-Elite-Dangerous

Quote
Greetings Citizens


I would like to congratulate David Braben and the entire team at Frontier Developments on this week’s launch of Elite: Dangerous. I have been a supporter of the Elite reboot since day one, and am thrilled to see it become a reality. I’m looking forward to taking a little bit of time off of Star Citizen during the holidays and firing up the finished version of E:D.

I know that many Star Citizen backers imagine there to be an intense competition between our game and Elite, but nothing could be further from the truth. David and I promoted each other’s projects during our respective crowd funding periods because we both believe that the world is better off with more PC games and even better off with more space games. In the nineties there was plenty of room for multiple Space Sims and there is no reason that still can’t be the case now! I’ve always maintained that we aren’t a success if we just make a game; part of the reason that I came back from film was to build a game in a genre I loved and hopefully remind people how amazing it is to lose yourself in another universe, adventuring amongst the stars. So rather than be worried about Elite or No Man’s Sky, I welcome them. It’s been a long time coming but Space Sims are finally getting the love they deserve. And what’s been more amazing is that it’s been a grass roots movement. It hasn’t been driven by a big publisher seeking to pad their profits but by gamers and developers that love the genre and wanted to return to the kind of games that captured their imagination when they were younger.

Star Citizen is taking a different path from Elite, and I strongly believe each game will have a distinct feel… and both can exist and flourish… but I’d like to think that both projects have benefited from each other’s public development! I would encourage anyone who loves space sims to take a look at Elite: Dangerous. The team at Frontier has done incredible work, and there’s a fascinating universe for pilots to explore. I have fond memories of playing the original Elite on my BBC Micro many years ago… and I’m very pleased that a new generation of gamers will get to have exactly that experience today.

— Chris Roberts

They've never hidden the mutual respect for each other, anyway :)

------------------------------------

IMO, the Dev Team need to put in place more systems that will make you create a more solid and long-term bond with either your ship or your character (or both).

I've always been in love with astronomy, space exploration and space games, including the original Elite, of course; they did an egregious work to replicate the "sense of wonder" while you're traveling and exploring, or even when you're looking at the Galaxy Map (and with it, the vast amount of "nothing" that also makes up Space, yeah :P).

But, they need to take all of this one step further: sandbox worlds need to make you feel like you're part of a much, much bigger place, where you can see people going about their business, undertake in-depth and varied careers (many of the current ones are in their infancy when it comes to the in-game systems); and yeah, why not, sandbox worlds need their Britain Bank or Barrens crossroads as hubs (yeah, well...don't mind the chattering, though).

You don't want to attach a skill system to your characters? Fine, but I would like to be represented by something a bit more detailed than a "Cmdr Lucas Konrad" in orange. Hopefully face and possibly full-body avatars will come.

Don't want to go down the Star Citizen route with detailed city hubs? The current hangars are fine: but let us walk in that central hall with a number of rooms branching from it that represent the facilities of that outpost/station; minimal furniture, limited number of NPC models, but hey, better than nothing, without the need of long walks like in X-Rebirth at release. Also, with full-body avatars capable of moving around, we'll be able to see other players (if in Open Play) and again, get that sense of "world" that is now limited.

But yeah, a good first step would be external views and also more grouping mechanics.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 18, 2014, 05:05:36 PM
The only thing that I dislike is that you can't see your ship, or weapons, or anything and that might make getting new ships not feel as awesome. But I get you feel the awesome in bigger cargo holds or faster turning or weapons stuff.


That's a HUGE pet peeve of mine, to the point that I've been "lobbying" on the official forums for months now about it. Sadly, the "vision" (sic) is that you are the pilot so there is no justification for any kind of external camera. I even tried to explain the Developers that there's no point in selling paintjobs and decals if we are the only ones who can't see their own ships, but they don't listen and don't seem to care.


EDIT: The Chris Roberts piece is really nice, especially considering he said a couple of things at some point a few months ago that sounded really dismissive of E:D. Really good to see him writing this.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Draegan on December 18, 2014, 05:32:50 PM
Lucas -

I don't really care about avatars or walking around. I personally don't get attachment over what my character looks like from a character creator. It's a space game, all I really care about is how badass my ship is. If you want personal attachment in this game, and you can never really see your ship, then you have to do it in leaderboards, some kind of in game reputation, or by building things (or at least sticking your name on something somewhere).



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: climbjtree on December 18, 2014, 06:23:12 PM
I feel more connected to my character in this game than I do a game like Everquest. Flying with a joystick is responsive, and I really feel like every advancement that comes is because I am becoming better at any of the tasks I am performing IRL. The stats tab on your display is also pretty satisfying! I mean, I went from "penniless" to "mostly penniless" to "peddler!"

What more can you ask for?  :awesome_for_real:

By the way Lucas - every time we are both online I'm trying to message you but it gives an error message about not being able to connect.  :headscratch:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on December 19, 2014, 04:05:03 AM
I've always been in love with astronomy, space exploration and space games, including the original Elite, of course; they did an egregious work to replicate the "sense of wonder" while you're traveling and exploring, or even when you're looking at the Galaxy Map (and with it, the vast amount of "nothing" that also makes up Space, yeah :P).

Egregious means "shockingly bad". Is that what you intended to say?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 19, 2014, 04:31:12 AM
I've always been in love with astronomy, space exploration and space games, including the original Elite, of course; they did an egregious work to replicate the "sense of wonder" while you're traveling and exploring, or even when you're looking at the Galaxy Map (and with it, the vast amount of "nothing" that also makes up Space, yeah :P).

Egregious means "shockingly bad". Is that what you intended to say?

Are you sure?

Quote
egregious (ɪˈɡriːdʒəs; -dʒɪəs)
adj
1. outstandingly bad; flagrant: an egregious lie.
2. distinguished; eminent

Looks like it means two different things, and the etymology seems to point more at the second meaning than the first. "Outstanding" from a crowd. I use it as Lucas does, and while English is certainly not our first language, we seem to have a better than average grasp of the origin of words (due to our Latin roots) which often leads us to use them in what was their original meaning and not the modern English one.


Quote
egregious (adj.)
1530s, "distinguished, eminent, excellent," from Latin egregius "distinguished, excellent, extraordinary," from the phrase ex grege "rising above the flock," from ex "out of" (see ex-) + grege, ablative of grex "herd, flock" (see gregarious).

Disapproving sense, now predominant, arose late 16c., originally ironic. It is not in the Latin word, which etymologically means simply "exceptional." Related: Egregiously; egregiousness.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on December 19, 2014, 04:49:46 AM
Draegan,

Ok, I'm with you about showcasing (and looking at it while it's flying in space, possibly :P) our badass ships, but IMO you're also a pilot (your mileage may vary, anyway); still, for the time being, the "stats" tab will do (climbjtree, I get the same message when I try to write something, I dunno).

LOL at Falc, the Latin Nazi  :grin: :why_so_serious: ; The sense of wonder *is* there, as far as it can go given the vast nothingness of space; it's more evident with the Galaxy Map: now I just need to browse it while listening to the g-map theme of Mass Effect :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on December 19, 2014, 05:12:55 AM
Are you sure?

Quote
egregious (ɪˈɡriːdʒəs; -dʒɪəs)
adj
1. outstandingly bad; flagrant: an egregious lie.
2. distinguished; eminent

Looks like it means two different things, and the etymology seems to point more at the second meaning than the first. "Outstanding" from a crowd. I use it as Lucas does, and while English is certainly not our first language, we seem to have a better than average grasp of the origin of words (due to our Latin roots) which often leads us to use them in what was their original meaning and not the modern English one.
Quote
egregious (adj.)
1530s, "distinguished, eminent, excellent," from Latin egregius "distinguished, excellent, extraordinary," from the phrase ex grege "rising above the flock," from ex "out of" (see ex-) + grege, ablative of grex "herd, flock" (see gregarious).

Disapproving sense, now predominant, arose late 16c., originally ironic. It is not in the Latin word, which etymologically means simply "exceptional." Related: Egregiously; egregiousness.

Yup, quite sure. While the original etymology is positive, that's archaic usage and the contemporary definition of the word is almost exclusively negative. I had this conversation with a friends Italian husband - I gather that the Italian word "egregio" (which has the same derivation) is/was used to address people formally, like the equivalent of the English "Dear" in letters, so "Dear Sir" is something like "Egregio Senor" in Italian. (I don't speak or know any Italian btw so do not speak with any authority - but I did study Latin & Ancient Greek and have a workable knowledge of French, Spanish, Welsh and Klingon.*)

So basically, yep, get where you're coming from but in UK English, the meaning is negative. Also, it's only really used by pretentious arseholes writing about Chaucerian characterisation and crap like that (in before "is that why you know about it!")



*j/k - who in their right minds would want to fucking learn Welsh?

 :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on December 19, 2014, 05:23:41 AM
Peasants.

(http://www.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/popular-mmorpg.jpg)



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Typhon on December 19, 2014, 06:44:54 AM
I agree with DranconianOne.  Took me a half a minute to figure out that Lucas was saying "good" instead of "horrendously bad".  It fucked up the whole paragraph.

Seems like "literally" is the new "egregious".   :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 19, 2014, 06:55:26 AM
Hey, we are still right. I understand how "YOU PEOPLE" have been using it "ironically" for 400 years. Doesn't change the fact that the archaic meaning is still correct. To me, you are just the uneducated internet kids of the late 16h century. We, class of AD 1530, prefer our English straight.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on December 19, 2014, 07:20:48 AM
(http://www.themcs.org/pictures/2010%20MCS%20Sky%20Sports%20Ryder%20Cup%20filming%20Caerphilly%2021.JPG)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: climbjtree on December 19, 2014, 10:08:14 AM
I've made my exodus to Jotunheim, and with good reason! I am now based here:

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82469/bhmh.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Teleku on December 21, 2014, 04:34:01 PM
(http://www.themcs.org/pictures/2010%20MCS%20Sky%20Sports%20Ryder%20Cup%20filming%20Caerphilly%2021.JPG)
I am pretty sure George Washington rode out on his armored steed and lanced a few mother fuckers.  So that picture really is historically actuate.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on December 22, 2014, 05:42:36 AM
(http://www.themcs.org/pictures/2010%20MCS%20Sky%20Sports%20Ryder%20Cup%20filming%20Caerphilly%2021.JPG)

Which side is the guy in the middle on? Or is he the GM?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Venkman on December 22, 2014, 07:17:58 AM
I am pretty sure George Washington rode out on his armored steed and lanced a few mother fuckers.  So that picture really is historically actuate.

Are you sure?

Quote
ac·tu·ate verb \ˈak-chə-ˌwāt, -shə-\
: to make (a machine or electrical device) move or operate

: to cause someone to do something or to act in a certain way

(sorry Falc, I couldn't resist  :wink:)

Also, skimming this thread, looking like it's getting to be worth a purchase. Question: is it fine with KB+M or does all the magic really come out with a Joystick? I can dig out my Sidewinder, but the things older than my marriage, and last time I got it working with that open source Freespace 2, the acceleration/engine power dial wasn't registering.

So, KB+M is fine or "dig around for good drivers" or "suck it up and buy a stick, cheapo"

I have time for just one game, pretty much all through next year and some of the following. I'd like it to be this one, but I can't also carry the time-weight of forums, build notes, theorycrafting and whatnot. Worth trying this or just go with Far Cry 4?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 22, 2014, 07:24:44 AM
So, KB+M is fine or "dig around for good drivers" or "suck it up and buy a stick, cheapo"


About M+K:

Very absolutely playable with mouse and keyboard. In fact, I still claim it works better than a HOTAS (although not even remotely as cool) because it's hands down easier to aim with the mouse than with a joystick. The important part is that you have to tweak a few things in the options as the default M+K setting was asinine last time they reset mine. Make sure to put the Yaw on the mouse horizontal axis and the roll on A and D keys. Also, make sure to activate the "mouse widget" or you won't have a visual clue of your heading and steering. Finally, there's a setting that has a name I can't remember that allows your ship to keep turning as long as the mouse widget is not centered. If you don't activate that, you will have to keep moving and recentering your mouse like a crazy person as if you were using a trackball. So fiddle with it and you will get an amazingly enjoyable M+K experience.


About getting the game: I keep saying the same thing, which is that there's still too many things missing and it is worth waiting 6 more months. If you'll get it now it'll probably hold your interest for a week or two. If you'll get it say June next year, it might last you a few months and leave much better memories.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Venkman on December 22, 2014, 01:05:35 PM
Ah cool, thanks for re-summarizing. I've only skimmed the thread but was behind six pages :-) I've got two weeks off so I'm sure I'll cave. DA3 isn't holding my attention at all.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Draegan on December 22, 2014, 06:19:18 PM
I find it hard to log in, but once I log in I usually have some kind of fun for 30-40 minutes. But essentially you're going to log in, undock, find a system to buy shit from, find another system to sell shit to and manually drive all over the place. It's fun for a while but then it doesn't stick.

You can also comb stations for missions that might have some fighting in it, but the one I took up I couldn't actually find the target. I had to look in three systems but I ended up running out of gas.

It's fun. It's also boring.

It really depends if you are up for a game where you just enjoy flying and doing  a limited list of random stuff.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on December 22, 2014, 07:14:32 PM
About getting the game: I keep saying the same thing, which is that there's still too many things missing and it is worth waiting 6 more months. If you'll get it now it'll probably hold your interest for a week or two. If you'll get it say June next year, it might last you a few months and leave much better memories.

What if I spent years playing Elite on C64 as a teenager and it probably ultimately led me to this post, yet I due to life I haven't touched Elite: Dangerous yet? Buy now or waiit the 6 more months? :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on December 22, 2014, 07:18:45 PM

It's fun. It's also boring.

It really depends if you are up for a game where you just enjoy flying and doing  a limited list of random stuff.

This is a good description of the game.  I really enjoy it, overall.  I like having to manually dock, I like flying around and stopping for a random USS only to find out it's nothing sometimes.  If you play this with a kind of obsession for progression, optimization and so forth, you're going to burn out in days.  If you just like flying around space it's fun, and it's boring, but it's also pretty enjoyable most of the time.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on December 22, 2014, 10:11:46 PM
If you just like flying around space it's fun, and it's boring, but it's also pretty enjoyable most of the time.
Perfect summation right there.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 23, 2014, 12:37:24 AM

What if I spent years playing Elite on C64 as a teenager and it probably ultimately led me to this post, yet I due to life I haven't touched Elite: Dangerous yet? Buy now or waiit the 6 more months? :)

I'd say Falc's advice is still spot on (although I have doubts about the timescale he suggests). Remember that we're not teenagers any more and that games have changed a LOT since then.

We, rightly, have higher expectations now than we did 30 years ago because we know games are capable of so much more. This one doesn't yet deliver on that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 23, 2014, 01:24:59 AM
About getting the game: I keep saying the same thing, which is that there's still too many things missing and it is worth waiting 6 more months. If you'll get it now it'll probably hold your interest for a week or two. If you'll get it say June next year, it might last you a few months and leave much better memories.

What if I spent years playing Elite on C64 as a teenager and it probably ultimately led me to this post, yet I due to life I haven't touched Elite: Dangerous yet? Buy now or waiit the 6 more months? :)

I think you can't do no wrong by waiting. That said, if you really believe you would be completely happy just with 1984 Elite with updated graphics and a hint of multiplayer then go for it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Typhon on December 23, 2014, 05:06:29 PM

I think you can't do no wrong by waiting. [snip!]

... unless you don't not wait! amirite?!  (been drinking)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on December 25, 2014, 06:07:08 PM
... unless you don't not wait! amirite?!  (been drinking)

At this point it's unlikely that I won't not wait.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 25, 2014, 06:32:05 PM
This is really cool.

Fan made news report on the dynamic events that are unfolding in the game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJJZ2bsrwYw).

The "seed" of these events are injected by Frontier Developments, and they write the daily news that this video is referencing to, but supposedly every new event is the result of some branching that happened due to players actions and the way they responded to those news and event, like what missions the majority picked or what shipes they killed, and so on.

EDIT: Today's episode, to have an idea of how the stories develop daily. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl8VdM5DQsU)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Surlyboi on December 25, 2014, 08:55:15 PM
Ok, that settles it. I'll get this and run with it and wait to see if Ponzi Citizen ever becomes a real thing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on December 26, 2014, 02:39:32 PM
I will definitely get this, but I am waiting for the price point and the amount of 'game' in the game to intersect at a spot I am happy to pay. Hasn't happened yet.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: rattran on December 26, 2014, 06:32:41 PM
I will definitely get this, but I am waiting for the price point and the amount of 'game' in the game to intersect at a spot I am happy to pay. Hasn't happened yet.
I'm in the same spot. I'd love a game to use my far too expensive and far too useless usb joystick/throttle with. But I want either lots of fun, or way cheap. Or some combo of both.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Furiously on January 03, 2015, 03:17:57 AM
I've made my exodus to Jotunheim, and with good reason! I am now based here:

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82469/bhmh.jpg)

Interesting spot to pick.... (cough)

Also, I have like 200 bucks to burn on Amazon and Amazon Prime doesn't have any X-52 Pro's in Stock.. Can't believe this game is making me think about spending $150 bucks on a joystick and throttle....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on January 03, 2015, 05:20:43 AM
Apparently the Thrustmaster Hotas X which is only about $50-$60 or something is a very good, low budget alternative (and the one that FAOFF champion Isinona uses). I'd love an X52 but, even with a load of gift vouchers, I can't bring myself to spend that much on one.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 04, 2015, 12:10:23 AM
So I got the itch to play some poker tonight, so I went down to the casino. Had a decent night and decided I would spend some of my profits on this here new fangled game. Trip report to follow.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 04, 2015, 03:05:27 AM
Cool. So far I feel like I wasted $60. Can't even complete the 'tutorials', which give me almost no help in how to play the fucking game. I spent 30 minutes trying to kill two ships and finally quit in frustration. Not sure if I am doing something wrong or if I am just the world's worst pilot. Certainly can't tell from the tutorial.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on January 04, 2015, 03:46:41 AM
What seems to be the problem? The combat does take a lot of getting used to but it will 'click' eventually.

Couple of things that took me a while to learn: your optimum speed for maneuverability is when you have the throttle display in the 'blue zone', and enemy ship shields recharge if you don't keep hitting them, you need to stay on one target until it's shield pops.

Also, don't try to maneuver by yawing, it's all about roll & pitch.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 04, 2015, 05:38:37 AM
Cool. So far I feel like I wasted $60. Can't even complete the 'tutorials', which give me almost no help in how to play the fucking game. I spent 30 minutes trying to kill two ships and finally quit in frustration. Not sure if I am doing something wrong or if I am just the world's worst pilot. Certainly can't tell from the tutorial.

If you are using Mouse & Keyboard you might use these life changing tips:

Quote
The important part is that you have to tweak a few things in the options as the default M+K setting was asinine last time they reset mine. Make sure to put the Yaw on the mouse horizontal axis and the roll on A and D keys. Also, make sure to activate the "mouse widget" or you won't have a visual clue of your heading and steering. Finally, there's a setting that has a name I can't remember that allows your ship to keep turning as long as the mouse widget is not centered. If you don't activate that, you will have to keep moving and recentering your mouse like a crazy person as if you were using a trackball. So fiddle with it and you will get an amazingly enjoyable M+K experience.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 04, 2015, 04:06:42 PM
I am using a joystick. Also figured out that I was doing the single player advanced combat and not the actual in game tutorials. At least those link to youtube videos, but those details should really be in the client. Still tutorialing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 04, 2015, 08:17:38 PM
Ok, so I have watched all the videos (some of them more than once), done all the tutorials, actually started my career, and even completely a 4600 credit mission (recognize the wealth). I feel like I just completed a final exam, which may or may not have included a rectal component. Jesus the learning curve is steep. I would have been really nice if all the info in the videos was in the goddamned tutorials. Also I think I hate the UI. It needs more mouse use with the joystick, especially navigating the ~trillion menus.

But I can see the fun just around the corner. Looking forward to not being a noob. Add me as a friend if you are so inclined.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on January 05, 2015, 12:31:02 AM
The UI is terrible, agreed. It's been designed to work both for people using Oculus Rifts and the eventual console ports. It's got pre-port consolitis.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on January 06, 2015, 07:08:00 AM
Joystick default setup is wrong too; I have a Logitech 3D Pro, had to remap the Throttle to the correct axis, and swap the yaw and the roll axes, because I want roll on twist and yaw on tilting the joystick sideways.  Like a spaceship, not like a plane, dammit.  Also switched the hat to look around rather than the stupid shield-engines-weapons energy levels.

So yeah, redo your interface.  Left panel F1, right panel F3, center F2.  In-panel navigation - arrow keys.  Switch tabs with TAB and shift-TAB.  Targeting keys, afterburner, and the shield / chaff defense stuff on the joystick.  None of these are the default values.

If you're not using the mouse for mouse-flight or mouse look, do enable the mouse widget thing; it will put a dot in the center of your screen, allowing you to aim your ship better.

For docking, remember that you have to face the correct way, in addition to being in the correct spot on the pad.

It's a solo game.  Chat is cumbersome at best, and there are almost no tools for talking with or finding others.  Play the Solo option, unless you want to participate in EVE-style gank PVP, in which case play the open game.  The General Discussion forum already has a few posts that look like they come from EVE pirate and CODE. PVP'ers, including multiple calls to HTFU.

I suck at aiming in combat with the joystick, so gimbal weapons are awesome.   A gimbal autocannon hits 90% of the time if the target is in front (easy to do) and within the 1km range.  Fixed autocannon, I barely hit 5%, as the aiming reticule is about quarter-inch (3mm) in diameter.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on January 06, 2015, 09:07:21 AM
swap the yaw and the roll axes, because I want roll on twist and yaw on tilting the joystick sideways.  Like a spaceship, not like a plane, dammit.

Yaw isn't really viable in this game with the exception of docking and slow maneuvering. It's designed to fly like a plane, not a spaceship and I know personally I couldn't have roll on twist because that would make combat very awkward. I've also mapped my hat button to translation thrusters as I use them a lot, even in combat. I don't yet have a separate throttle unit (Saitek Cyborg Evo) but, if and when I do, I may well move translation thrusters to any suitable buttons on there.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 06, 2015, 11:14:41 AM
Yeah I can't imagine twisting to roll. That makes my head hurt. The rest of the tweaks sound like good ideas though- I like the F1-3 idea especially.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: cironian on January 06, 2015, 11:28:07 AM
Despite having spent my share of hours in plane flight sims and being totally comfortable with the normal X-axis to roll setup there it just feels wrong for me in Elite: It's twist to roll all the way dammit!

I must be switching to another part of my brain when flying against a star background. I blame Wing Commander.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Slyfeind on January 09, 2015, 11:46:22 AM
Yikes. I was really looking forward to this game, but this all makes it sound like they're changing established UI conventions just to be different. I'm wary when an interface "just takes some getting used to" or "there's a trick to it" or somesuch. Is the learning curve worth it, i.e. does it add anything to the experience, once you're proficient?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on January 09, 2015, 12:14:39 PM
If you want a pretty and faithful, and I mean absolutely faithful modern interpretation of Elite, then buy it. If even minor nitpicky things annoy you or you are looking for twitch EVE, then stay away.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Slyfeind on January 09, 2015, 05:37:54 PM
I never played the original Elite. So these are elements that the original had? I'm just trying to get inside the heads of the developers and why certain decisions were made.

Fakeedit: I just googled it. Dude, that looks charming as fuck.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on January 11, 2015, 11:17:19 AM
Wasn't looking for twitch EVE, didn't care about the original Elite.  There have been a few Elite-like games, and what I was looking for was a game in the same genre but with all the quality-of-life improvements that we've had in the past few years.  Planes flying in space, ROFL.  Looking at orange holograms all day long, instead of actual ships, ROFL.  $60 "sale" heh.

Also, "No Fire Zone left" messages for a .co.uk game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on January 14, 2015, 02:41:28 AM
Galnet news: Changes brewing in the Lugh system (http://www.elitedangerous.com/news/galnet/?read=13JAN3301fadec3130d8424012aa13e55a7d90206)

Quote
We’ve received reports from the Lugh system of the Federal backed Lugh for Equality faction losing ground in the political struggle with the rising Crimson State Group. According to opinion polls support for the Crimson State Group independence movement has risen to over 66%. The staggering increase in influence has seen them victorious in a civil war against the Lugh Defence Force and thereby gaining control of the Balandin Gateway starport. Observers indicate that the group’s success is due to a huge level of support from independent pilots.

Financial forecasters are also astounded at the volume of trading by the Crimson State Group and are now predicting an economic boom for them. This can only come as more bad news for the beleaguered system owners. The question on everyone’s lips is how will the Federation respond to this? Especially considering rumours of other Federal systems seeking independence.

This is the player backed attempt at driving the Federation out of a system through gameplay rather than because Frontier started a story thread to do so. Hasn't been without issues - some bugs regarding influence and reputation have been discovered - but it's good to see that the news is reflecting player actions.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 15, 2015, 12:40:13 AM
Yahtzee's review of Elite Dangerous. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/9991-Elite-Dangerous-Review) Sounds about right.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on January 16, 2015, 02:40:08 PM
So I've entered the brave new world of space commodity trucking and wanted to know if you can add people from the forums to your friends list...  Is there any point to it?  Can you communicate with one another, or should I just stick with the space trucking until I can buy my sweet, sweet mining laser?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on January 16, 2015, 02:41:36 PM
You can communicate with each other in game, and I guess some better partying/wing features are supposed to be coming soon.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: climbjtree on January 16, 2015, 05:08:40 PM
Feel free to add me. I am also a space trucker.

'rldmoto' in game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 16, 2015, 05:51:41 PM
Oldschool 1980s C64 Elite player. Finally caved and bought Elite Dangerous. LOVING it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 16, 2015, 07:07:03 PM
You can actually voice-call your friends in game and it's fuckin amazing cause it simulates the distortion that you would expect from a space radio comm.

That said, more significant group functionalities are going to be up on the test server at the beginning of February and live about a week later.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on January 16, 2015, 08:43:06 PM
Oldschool 1980s C64 Elite player. Finally caved and bought Elite Dangerous. LOVING it.

Same here.  I actually bought a joystick for the damned game, and I'm really glad I did.  I'm digging the slow, deliberate pace.

Eta:  I do think they need to amplify the multiplayer elements and EVE this bitch up a little.  I don't mind being a worker bee, but I'd like it even more if it were serving a like minded horde of expansionist space fascists.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on January 19, 2015, 05:38:10 PM
Okay...  Mining is not only boring, but also seriously tedious.  Can a brother get a tractor beam, for fuck's sake?  It's 3300 AD and I'm having to chase down tiny little bits of rock after they pop off of a big rock.  Seriously sucks, and the worst part is how much I paid to refit my sidewinder.

So now I've got to go back, turn my sidewinder into a half assed hauler (no shield, no discovery scanner).  Has anyone tried smuggling?  Going back and forth from one system to another buying and selling the same two commodities each time is getting old. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on January 19, 2015, 09:35:17 PM
Okay...  Mining is not only boring, but also seriously tedious.  Can a brother get a tractor beam, for fuck's sake?  It's 3300 AD and I'm having to chase down tiny little bits of rock after they pop off of a big rock.  Seriously sucks, and the worst part is how much I paid to refit my sidewinder.

So now I've got to go back, turn my sidewinder into a half assed hauler (no shield, no discovery scanner).  Has anyone tried smuggling?  Going back and forth from one system to another buying and selling the same two commodities each time is getting old.  

Man you are in a free as shit sidewinder, go to a nav beacon and get as many last hits in as you can on wanted ships. Who cares if it gets blown up, they give you another free one. Use the hotkey that cycles subsystem targeting, target the FSD or powerplant. Be sure to use the hotkey to target subsystem targets though because it takes too long to use the left ui panel to choose. Then aim for the red box. When you get enough bounties go turn them in so that you don't lose too many bounties if you die. This is good too because it gives you combat practice. If you get good at killing with the free sidewinder you will be a murder machine when you upgrade to a viper or cobra.

There is no benefit to smuggling.

They have admitted that mining is currently in a bare bones state. In their interviews and stuff they have said they plan on doing much more to make it better. There was even talk of possible drones to collect the ore.

Edit: If your sidewinder needs more punch upgrade the distributor, then the power plant, then gimbaled lasers. Upgrade in that order. Keep the sidewinder rebuy cost under 10k. You should be golden with that for a while.
Edit 2: Your unupgraded sidewinder has shit for power distribution, you need to be constantly adjusting power levels for systems and weapons in early dogfights. If you aren't under fire all pips go in weapons, if they are making a run on you all pips to sheilds, with an occasional pip or two in engines.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on January 19, 2015, 10:49:29 PM
I just flew around into unidentified signals and into extraction sites and shot at Wanted npc's; if too tough for my ship I let the security forces soften them up a little.  Ended up with several hundred k from bounties and got an Adder, sweet ship. 

Gimbal autocannons; people on the forums suggest splitting between lasers and cannons but I have a thing from EVE about not mixing weapons.  The Adder can do anything, from fighting to exploring to trading small amounts, you just refit it as needed.  It has enough internal slots for versatility.

Took the Adder and moved out of the starter area, about 100 LY away towards the center.  50 ships per day traffic, so nobody there.  Not gonna grind for the bigger ships; Cobra and Type6 are sufficient. 

Not an original Elite player, so I'm running into things about the game that bug me.  Flying like a plane, looking at texture-less orange wireframes all the damn time, the way the radar range auto-adjusts out of control, eyes hurting from camera shake whenever I accelerate / decelerate, etc.  Probably gonna put the game on hold for a while until they add more features or fix stuff.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on January 20, 2015, 01:33:22 PM
... that bug me.  Flying like a plane, looking at texture-less orange wireframes all the damn time, the way the radar range auto-adjusts out of control, eyes hurting from camera shake whenever I accelerate / decelerate, etc.  Probably gonna put the game on hold for a while until they add more features or fix stuff.

Turn off flight assist if you don't want the computer to simulate that type of motion. For the wireframes, if you  mean the orbital lines, you can turn that off in the right ui panel. If you mean the cockpit holos you can change from orange to blue in the menu. The forums also have several threads that link guides to changing the holo color selections.

The shake you talk about only happens when dropping in and out of supercruise or system jumping. I've never seen shake on acceleration or deceleration during normal flight.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Setanta on January 20, 2015, 09:37:02 PM
Just bought this - and I suck at it. I can't read the round map thingy and am lousy at lining up targets in the training missions. I'm certain its me sucking, would I be better off switching from keyboard mouse to Xbox controller?

No outside camera (that I can find) is my pet peeve. What I like about eve is that I can see my ship - at the expense of the realism of a cockpit.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on January 21, 2015, 02:51:31 AM
Just bought this - and I suck at it. I can't read the round map thingy and am lousy at lining up targets in the training missions. I'm certain its me sucking, would I be better off switching from keyboard mouse to Xbox controller?

Can't comment on the difference between mouse and XBox controller. I should probably try them myself - I used the original Elite key configuration for years after I stopped playing Elite and feel I should try on E:D to see what it's like.

Do you want some input on how to read the scanner ("round map thingy")?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 21, 2015, 03:13:42 AM
Keyboard and Mouse are perfectly fine after you apply some tweaks I posted twice in the previous pages.

Lack of any external view is a HUGE pet peeve of mine too. It's driving me insane and making me stupidly resentful. I kind of want to punch them in the face until they put it in. Not being able to properly see your own starship in a starship game, even when docked, is just idiotic.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Setanta on January 21, 2015, 04:36:45 AM
Input on the scanner would be good - I'm guessing its a 3d horizon setup but I just can't get my head around it. :)

Keyboard tweaks done thanks :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on January 21, 2015, 04:37:16 AM
Turning off flight assist just makes the yaw and pitch axes logarithmic (much harder to control), and introduces artificial deviations from your current heading.  It doesn't make the flight Newtonian.  Flight assist off should keep my ship going in the direction I was going in, let me pitch yaw as normal, and allow me to burn to whatever speed I want by pressing directional thrust keys.  This game does not have Newtonian flight.  Newtonian can be achieved by turning off the thrusters module, but then you can't thrust.

Camera shake during throttle up/down does happen in a Type 6, I guess it's "heavy"; it shakes every time I throttle down to fit in the mail slots to land, and reading shaky numbers off the UI while trying to aim at the slot hurts my eyes, it's noticeable.

The game's loading screen is a rotating ship holo; when you peruse for ships to buy they're all holos; the only time you see an actual textured model is in the fittings screen (and you can't even see it from all angles).  Ships in space are too far to see the detailed models.

The radar adjust its range to your current target, moving all the other blips in and out as needed.  It doesn't stay at a fixed range, in supercruise at least.  If a blip gets behind you with the intent to interdict, and you try to target it, you'll lose track of where it is as you cycle through the ships in the system.  Because the radar adjusts and displays all the blips based on the range to each new ship that you target.  Both in linear and logarithmic mode, zoomed in or out (with the control keys).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 21, 2015, 10:59:08 AM
Have you watched the training videos on youtube? They were actually useful to me.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 22, 2015, 02:34:09 AM
Patch 1.1 preview: Community Goals. (http://www.pcgamer.com/elite-dangerous-patch-11-preview-community-goals-revealed/)


Quote
"Community Goals are a new type of story-driven collaborative event," Brookes says. "Already players are working together to influence the power struggles in our galaxy, but Community Goals are a shared objective we can generate to allow vast numbers of players to collaborate towards the same goal."

Brookes uses the example of a system dealing with a sudden famine. "A Community Goal will be created to supply the food within a set time limit, and if the players achieve the goal then they’ll save the population. And whether they succeed or fail will have ramifications for the balance of power in the galaxy."

The first Community Goals will be based around supply and bounties. "For example," Brookes says, "a faction might task our pilots with racking up a number of kills in a particular system, effectively sending massive numbers of players to war for or against particular group." He explains that these massive player migrations will have a knock-on effect on galaxy-wide economy and power structures.

(...)

Brookes also teases some of patch 1.1's other features. "Alongside a number of tweaks and bug fixes we’re adding a shiny new gas giant shader," he says. "Gas giants now use a parallax shader which improves the feeling of depth within the layers of gas. You can see giant canyons in the gases of Jupiter and high level white clouds floating over Neptune.

"We also have city lights on the dark side of planets, which is something the community and the development team has been looking forward to for some time!"


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on January 22, 2015, 03:07:03 PM
Turning off flight assist just makes the yaw and pitch axes logarithmic (much harder to control), and introduces artificial deviations from your current heading.  It doesn't make the flight Newtonian.  Flight assist off should keep my ship going in the direction I was going in, let me pitch yaw as normal, and allow me to burn to whatever speed I want by pressing directional thrust keys.  This game does not have Newtonian flight.  Newtonian can be achieved by turning off the thrusters module, but then you can't thrust.

Yeah, that doesn't sound right. FAOFF isn't true Newtonian, agreed, because there's a speed cap on your ship and maximum boost speed bleeds off to top speed. But your ship does keep going in the direction it was going, no matter which thrusters you use. I've done it myself recently in the tutorial - start from stationary, apply a bit of forward thrust and just keep drifting baby. No artificial deviations and everything operating pretty much as I'd expect.

Here's the superb Isinona's guide from Prem Beta 1.0 (most of which still holds) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtD41MRibe4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtD41MRibe4) 

And here's another guide posted last week (which sounds mode like an Open University lecturer than a game player but shows exactly what FAOFF does): https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3068981663&feature=iv&src_vid=U8SLOqS1IX0&v=txuKOhsAbsk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3068981663&feature=iv&src_vid=U8SLOqS1IX0&v=txuKOhsAbsk)

I can't use my joystick though because it's old and tends to pull to the left a fraction. Fine in FAON because I can manually correct but makes FAOFF impossible (as does my general lack of skills in that area).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on January 22, 2015, 07:30:50 PM
Ok, guess I was mistaken about how flight assist works; it does behave as you guys are saying.  Thanks, I think I understand how to use it now.  It's probably going to be easier to leave assist on (so I can have yaw/pitch assist) and just zero my joystick throttle and fly backwards or sideways by holding down the keyboard directional thrusts.

My joystick pulls to the left too, but I've canceled that by setting the yaw deadzone to 25% in the game settings.

Windows 7 does let you calibrate joysticks, but it's hidden:

Start -> Devices and Printers -> rightclick the joystick and choose Game Controller Settings.
A window titled Game Controllers should appear, listing the joystick.
If you press Properties it just gives a window showing your axes and buttons.
If you hold Ctrl-Shift and press Properties, it brings up a different window that has a Calibrate button.
You can then try to offset the drift by holding "center position" a bit to the left during calibration.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on January 23, 2015, 12:36:42 AM
Thanks - handy.

My overriding problem is that I'm just too lazy to work all that out - which is the same reason I'm not using the FreeIR headlook thing or VoiceAttack.  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on February 11, 2015, 11:07:33 AM
Anyone play 1.1 yet? Curious how much different things are. I was distracted by other things last night and forgot all about it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on February 11, 2015, 11:25:42 AM
The consesus seems to be that there are improvements but nothing that radically changes your experience. It's probably worth to wait 3 or 4 big patches and then come back and reap on the slew of new content. Single patches are probably never gonna be that impactful. Next one though, supposedly out in less than two months, will introduce serious group action according to the official channels.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on February 11, 2015, 12:02:13 PM
The patch that is adding more of the ease of playing with your friends type stuff is supposed to be coming in March, if that's what you are waiting for.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on February 11, 2015, 12:20:24 PM
I am not sure what I am waiting for, tbh. I have had fun when I do play, but I don't get that itch/urge/pathological NEED to play like I do with other games.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on February 11, 2015, 12:28:12 PM
I am not sure what I am waiting for, tbh. I have had fun when I do play, but I don't get that itch/urge/pathological NEED to play like I do with other games.

Yeah, I've had a similar experience.  The game is perfectly enjoyable, it just isn't addicting.  I'm personally waiting for wings or some kind of easier grouping because my best times have been had flying around with a couple of friends, but it's such a pain in the ass right now to make sure you end up in the same instances that it becomes an exercise in frustration.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on February 13, 2015, 02:00:00 AM
Yesterday's dev update:

Quote
The focus for a large proportion of the team is now for the 1.2 update. There will be an in depth feature on the Wings functionality in the next couple of weeks and I’ll post the link to that when it’s available. In the meantime we’re also adding other new features and content. The galaxy map will be seeing an update beyond what I mentioned in last week’s post with more visible indications for player’s ships, mission markers, wing markers and friends locations displayed in the map. These changes will also be applied the system map.

Update 1.2 will also contain two new playable ships – there will be more information on these in coming newsletters.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on February 26, 2015, 08:35:20 AM
New Dev Update:

Quote
Hi everyone,

The beta release for update 1.2 is rapidly approaching and I have some more details to share in this week’s update.

First let’s look at some more details on the Wings functionality – Wing Beacons. Player wings exist to enable cooperative game play. One of the neat features wings use to support this notion is the wing beacon. This nifty little device allows you to send a signal from normal space into the system’s super cruise environment.
Your wing will be able to see the signal - regardless of distance - as long as they are in super cruise in the system; they can use it just like a wake and drop down to your location.

The wing beacon also leaves the door open for future updates to trigger game events from it, such as distress calls to nearby Commanders and AI ships for example. But right now it makes all the difference when you drop into your wing’s system; with a simple flick of a switch, your team members will be able to instantly lead you to their position.

Wings also brings an overhaul for comms. The most obvious change is the ability to transmit open broadcasts. Such text messages will now be received by all ships nearby. Of course, you can toggle your ship’s ability to receive such broadcasts at will.

We’ve also popped in some text line syntax, allowing you to /T talk directly to the ship you’ve targeted, /R respond to the ship that last talked directly to you, as a well as /W talk to your wing. When you join a wing, you will by default send communications to them, but you can quickly toggle this option when you type your message.

Another change related to comms is that commanders docked in starports will now remain on your contact list so you can chat with them while docked.

Another aspect we’ve looked into is the operating costs on ships, so in 1.2 we’ve performed a balance pass on repair costs. This change should really help Commanders make profit from combat roles: as long as they don’t die, their repair costs should not eat away all of the profit they might be making from bounties and the like.

Balancing the various economies and risks in the game is an ongoing affair, so this probably won’t be the last change we make, but we believe lowering repair costs is on the safer side, so it’s a good candidate to test out and bed in first.

We’ve also added a cool new feature for people with damaged modules. We’re activating diagnostics repair-reboot functionality on all ships. Whilst still not a match for an automatic field-maintenance module, this function allows a ship to reboot and jury-rig completely broken modules, getting them back up and running at a couple of percent health. Of course, there’s a cost: for every percent of health repaired, another, healthier module will be stripped of double this amount as components are cannibalised.

For people wanting to take screenshots or look at their own ships we’re also unlocking a debug camera. This allows you take limited control of the camera outside of your ship. This isn’t a gameplay camera and is purely a debug function to allow players to see their ship.

Looking beyond the 1.2 release we have the Mac beta, still scheduled for the end of March. Beyond that we have the 1.3 update and we’ll share more information on that update ‘soon’.

Thanks

Michael


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on February 26, 2015, 01:27:48 PM
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-x5GgSXAAEIt3r.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: HaemishM on February 26, 2015, 06:20:34 PM
Please tell me the selfie stick was shopped.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on March 05, 2015, 02:06:39 AM
Feedback from the Wings beta is positive so far, from what I can tell - grouping and new comms seem to be hitting the spot.

New news, however is that the 1.3 update will be called PowerPlay and may, according to some reddit datamining, involve some type of PvP arenas.   Also, it's been officially announced that E:D wil be released for XBone later in the year. That's going to make the forums an interesting place...  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on March 06, 2015, 09:29:53 AM
External Camera in 1.2 is a gamechanger for me. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yjgx1zp13A)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on March 06, 2015, 10:03:32 AM
Such a bizarre thing for people to get hung up on, from my perspective, but I'm glad they added something so many people seemed to care  a lot about.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mandella on March 06, 2015, 10:41:20 AM
Such a bizarre thing for people to get hung up on, from my perspective, but I'm glad they added something so many people seemed to care  a lot about.

I'm fine with WWII flight sims (for instance) not having an exterior view mode, but it can so easily be justified by future tech as to offer no real reason not to have it. The selfie stick image is only partly a joke -- a trailing camera could be put out on a tether, or a free flying drone could be used, or your helpful computer could just be putting together a nice 3D hologram for you to see.

And I think it is pretty obvious why it would be beneficial to be able to perform an all around visual inspection of your craft without requiring a spacewalk or asking a passing stranger...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on March 06, 2015, 11:17:43 AM
I have absolutely no problem with it even without some kind of sci-fi explanation.  I just don't care that much about seeing my ship.  But, I understand that other people too.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on March 10, 2015, 09:01:00 AM
Patch 1.2, the one about Wings (groups), is live.

Immense patch notes here. (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=123776)


EDIT: Also, 39 minutes of "Hangar Commander" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6SLTQZhRvg). All ships finally glorified by wanking around with the external camera.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: cironian on March 10, 2015, 10:50:19 AM
wanking around with the external camera.

It that a selfie stick or are you just happy to see your ship from the outside?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on March 10, 2015, 02:36:01 PM
HEH. Turns out it's not a selfie stick at all. It's basically a FPS flying self that you can move around the hangar as much as you want and also gives a good teaser of what walking in stations will be like.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: calapine on April 01, 2015, 03:57:07 PM
Is anyone here still playing this game regularly?

Bought the game months ago (in beta), forgot about it, and now not sure if there is even a point in still downloading today...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 01, 2015, 04:07:49 PM
Why there shouldn't be a point? The game gets better with each patch. Whether that is enough for you or not to want to stick with it or not is something you can only find out by playing. And if you bought it and never played it there's plenty of points to give it a swirl.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: calapine on April 01, 2015, 04:19:55 PM
Why there shouldn't be a point?

Maybe that wasn't the best way to phrase it by me.

From the little beta experience it felt like a rather complex game with a higher barrier of entry. So one of the titles that should be approached with "serious" mindset or not at all, IMHO.

So I was curious about everyone's verdict & if there is a community for it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 01, 2015, 04:28:31 PM
I see :)

For all I know there is a really big and a surprisingly good community. Probably because the average age of the players is 40+ and because it's not really a competitive game in any way. The verdict varies depending where you are looking for answers, but I think it's fair to say that the f13 average verdict has been that it's a wonderfully crfafted game but very boring very soon.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on April 02, 2015, 01:54:05 PM
The recent patch that added wings has brought the game back for me.  My friend and I bought this game to cruise the galaxy, explore, kill stuff, do a bit of everything and the fact that we were fighting the game to do it eventually turned us off from it.  But now that we can slave jump drives, easily play together, etc we've been playing a lot again.  The game plays well and is basically everything I expected from it.  That being said, if you are looking for the second coming of EVE, this isn't it.  It's much more about going it alone in the galaxy and doing whatever floats your boat.  On the one hand you do kind of want to take it "seriously" because the game is fairly complicated.  On the other hand, there is really no pressure to do anything you don't want to do within its framework because, as Falconeer said, it's not competitive at all.

We always play privately, so I don't know what the larger community is like to be honest.  I like the evolving galaxy/galnet stuff, but that only has a bit to do with other players.

Edit: Also, apparently this is on steam now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 03, 2015, 03:20:26 AM
The Steam move is really cool.

Also, they announced the first feature from the super secret update 1.3.

DRONES!

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Collector_Drone_Screenie.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: calapine on April 03, 2015, 01:36:49 PM
The Steam move is really cool.

But it seems to have annoyed quite a few backers who bought it from the website and now want a steam key.

Wasn't the guy behind this against Steam release for some reason? (I might be confusing/misremembering things here...)



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on April 03, 2015, 03:28:18 PM
I would like to have it through Steam as well, just for ease of reinstallation down the road.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on April 07, 2015, 01:24:57 PM
this is me learning to play this game

(http://i.imgur.com/jUCV1C6.gif)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on April 07, 2015, 02:06:46 PM
Hahaha. That's more entertaining than the actual game.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 23, 2015, 05:45:34 AM
They finally revealed what the 1.3 patch "Powerplay" is about. Basically, "Community Warfare".

Quote
In the Powerplay update you'll find a new tab on the galaxy map, displaying the current state of galactic control among all the Powers.

"We've had to add a lot to the galaxy map," User Interface Head Jon Pace says. "Powerplay is like a massive strategy boardgame, but our conflicts play out in three dimensions, and we have to make that readable for players. You can see all their borders, what kinds of systems they control, who their neighbours and enemies are, and how the map changes every week as the Powers make their moves.

"And we've added new screens to your ship's UI," Pace continues. "So you can get an immediate overview of the Powers and their standing in the galaxy."

Basically, there will be an active map with factions controlling them, and players being able to change the layout of this map through their actions.
There will also be NPCs that will be part of this evolving storyline in a way much more visbile, tangible and sighnificant than what is already in the game.



(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Powerplay1.jpg)

Quote
"Players choose which system their Power targets," Sammarco says. "At the end of the week the target will be chosen and objectives will be created. If your Power tasks you to conquer a system, there will always be an opposing mission for the other side.

"One of my favourite parts of Powerplay is how the objectives match the faction's ethos," Sammarco continues. "For example, if a major economic Power sends in their traders for a financial takeover against a military powerhouse, the other side may be tasked with piracy missions to destroy or loot their cargo. You can always be a trader or a miner or a pirate for your own ends, but by joining a Power you'll be afforded special rights and be rewarded for playing the way you already like to play."

"And every Power has ranks of its own," Brookes continues. "Achieving a high rank affords you more votes and more control over the Power's actions each week. The most valued pilots will have a lot of say in where their Power goes next."


(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Powerplay2.jpg)


This is the coolest part in my opinion:

Quote
Players will even have a hand in creating new Powers. The initial selection of factions will rise to a maximum of twenty as players provide assistance to minor local forces; as those forces establish a foothold across a handful of systems, they may rise to become Powers in their own right.

"But for me the best reward is how Powerplay changes combat," Lead Designer Sandro Sammarco says. "The Pilots Federation waives all penalties for engaging invaders in combat during times of war, so you'll have license to attack anyone from a rival power in your own territory without incurring a bounty. We're giving players a reason to engage in PVP against supporters of other factions.


tl,dr bullet point list:

  • When Powerplay launches, you'll be able to ally yourself with any one of a number of galactic Powers, earning valuable perks, reputation bonuses and credits for your allegiance.
  • Combat-focused players may choose to side with warlike Powers for combat missions and perks, while trade-focused players may prefer to side with a Power looking to expand their trade monopoly.
  • All week long players can perform actions to undermine enemy control over systems, fortify your territory against rivals attempting to undermine you, or prepare unoccupied systems for conquest. Systems prepared for takeover will become zones where duelling Powers can attempt to expand their borders.
  • You can always be a trader or a miner or a pirate for your own ends, but by joining a Power you'll be afforded special rights and be rewarded for playing the way you already like to play.
  • Achieving a high rank affords you more votes and more control over the Power's actions each week. The most valued pilots will have a lot of say in where their Power goes next.
  • By joining a Power that supports your play style you'll get better deals, cheaper repair costs, reduced fines, increased values for exploration data and more
  • The initial selection of factions will rise to a maximum of twenty as players provide assistance to minor local forces; as those forces establish a foothold across a handful of systems, they may rise to become Powers in their own right.
  • "...you'll have license to attack anyone from a rival power in your own territory without incurring a bounty"

Some sort of hybrid between a boardgame and EVE-lite with the factions being directed by players but held by NPCs.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 25, 2015, 05:51:43 PM
That sounds interesting, but it depends on implementation and so on.

I agree that keeping players out of thew power systems of the factions is pretty much a good idea. That will cut out the danger of eve style power blocks pretending to be hostile to one another but not actually doing anything to harm one another and "accidentally" working together to boot out new powers that threaten them.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on April 25, 2015, 08:04:47 PM
That sounds interesting, but it depends on implementation and so on.

I agree that keeping players out of thew power systems of the factions is pretty much a good idea. That will cut out the danger of eve style power blocks pretending to be hostile to one another but not actually doing anything to harm one another and "accidentally" working together to boot out new powers that threaten them.

The scale of the space available in ED almost automatically makes player interference, of any type, inconsequential.  Especially when one can just move into a private group or go solo to avoid dealing with other players.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on April 29, 2015, 12:40:06 PM
ED, while being plenty fun as a kind of a sandboxy thing, makes the case quite eloquently that future ieterations on space sim should have 'toybox' systems.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on April 29, 2015, 08:24:37 PM
Just saw this on Steam, so started to poke around. Does F13 have a guild/corp/whateveritis in Elite?  Gotta figure out where my joystick is before I hit GO, but this might be fun to check out for a bit.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on April 29, 2015, 11:09:29 PM
Just saw this on Steam, so started to poke around. Does F13 have a guild/corp/whateveritis in Elite?  Gotta figure out where my joystick is before I hit GO, but this might be fun to check out for a bit.

Group functionality in this is still rough. Also, the scale of even the inhabited space doesn't really lend itself to guild based activity. That might be a whole lot different in six months though.

I play exclusively in open and I haven't seen another player since December. I think they fucked up making this game a one for one scale model of the milky way. This game makes even Eve's game world seem extremely small.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on April 29, 2015, 11:54:08 PM
There are no guilds/corps.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 30, 2015, 12:33:34 AM
I play exclusively in open and I haven't seen another player since December. I think they fucked up making this game a one for one scale model of the milky way. This game makes even Eve's game world seem extremely small.

For fairness, there's plenty of areas with lots and lots of players. But as you say, given the scale, you have to specifically choose areas where commerce is meaningful or where "political" activities are going on. This is a nice part in my opinion cause you can totally choose to live the heavily populated areas of the galaxy and their activities (things like the community goals), or play as a hermit that "owns" a system and welcomes or attack anyone who dares to venture their little corner. Anyway, patch 1.3 factions are supposed to create an even more obvious layer of populated/depopulated areas.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 05, 2015, 01:57:30 AM
The Thargoids are, apparently, here.

There is a SUPER RARE spawn called Unknown Artifact (took the whole community ten days to find one), that emits a coded transmission when listened to from a certain distance. Very few have been found in the past but no one thought about "listening" to them. Not until a Dev hinted to it a week ago. Since then, a crazy hunt has started and finally yesterday one Commander found one. Here's a video of the insanely rare relic. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2FQzPIZqms)

In the meantime, during the hunt Frontier Developments put out an official in-game call for one of these artifacts. Reward, 1M credits. This is tied to a cool storyline whereas an unknown alien parasite is taking over some peripheral systems, so scientists are looking for anything that could help find a cure.

After Commander Red Wizzard found the Artifact yesterday and delivered it to an NPC, this game-wide messaged popped out on Galnet:


(http://i.imgur.com/LLwJWcd.png)


In the meantime, the community is going crazy trying to decode the "noise" emitted by the Artifact. So far no one has been able to translate the message, but here (http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/34wdza/unknown_artifact_decryption_breakthrough/), and here (http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/34u5nl/unknown_artefact_video_analysis/), you can get a glimpse at the kind of collaborative efforts being made.

It's easy to conclude that as soon as the message will be decoded Thargoids will be announced. Which is pretty exciting as it will be a different kind of PvP and possibly player goals altogether. In the meantime, though, while this is all very cool, I don't want anyone to believe that the gameplay has changed at all. This is -at the moment- stuff that is going on outside the game more than in game.



EDIT: More speculations, as the Artifact apparently emits spores (http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/34vbo5/closeup_gif_video_on_the_unknown_artefact_as_it/) and damages any ship that is carrying it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on May 05, 2015, 11:38:53 AM
BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on May 06, 2015, 07:57:00 PM
I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm Viin in ED if anyone wants to friend up.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on May 06, 2015, 09:48:38 PM
Is there a way to 'bookmark' a signal (either before I jump into it or before I jump out) so that I can come back to it? Do they disappear after you visit them?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 07, 2015, 12:20:53 AM
Uhm, no I am pretty sure you can't bookmark a signal. I never thought about it, but that would be pretty useful!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on May 07, 2015, 06:00:45 AM
Ok, I finally decided to give it a go.

Twenty minutes into the docking tutorial, I can't say that I'm enjoying it. But I'll keep at it for a while.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 07, 2015, 06:58:46 AM
WOW are you serious? Docking and undocking are some of the best aspects of the game. Are you having a hard time moving around? Customizing the controls swings the experience from frustrating to awesome in a handful of mouse clicks.

Also, 20 minutes to learn to dock makes no sense. I haven't tried the tutorial but it's a 3 minutes affair, seriously.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on May 07, 2015, 07:23:56 AM
I do like me some docking. 

But really, the first time can be a little rough, especially if you do not know the controls.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on May 07, 2015, 09:21:15 AM
Had to set up my joystick to use the hat for lateral and vertical thrust, then docking got a lot easier (combat too, in some cases). Just last night I went full speed into a station because I was just scanned with a cargo hold full of illicit goods - thought I was going to explode on the station but I made it nary a scratch!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on May 07, 2015, 09:22:14 AM
Every now and then I still manage to make a total balls up of docking.

Usually while drunk.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on May 07, 2015, 10:18:39 AM
I set up my mouse and keyboard and tried different methodologies for decay and shit and now I can steer and maneuver better with a mouse and keyboard than I ever could with a joystick

which is me being a total killjoy but there you go.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: cironian on May 07, 2015, 11:05:21 AM
I do like me some docking. 

But really, the first time can be a little rough, especially if you do not know the controls.
Every now and then I still manage to make a total balls up of docking.

Usually while drunk.

Are we still talking about Elite?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on May 07, 2015, 11:21:53 AM
I do like me some docking.  

But really, the first time can be a little rough, especially if you do not know the controls.
Every now and then I still manage to make a total balls up of docking.

Usually while drunk.

Are we still talking about Elite?

 :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on May 07, 2015, 11:34:28 AM
pfhahahahahahaaaa


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Typhon on May 07, 2015, 04:23:09 PM
[snip]Docking and undocking are some of the best aspects of the game.[snip]

I found this quote alarming.  I was thinking about picking it up, but I think I'm not the audience.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on May 07, 2015, 06:02:40 PM
[snip]Docking and undocking are some of the best aspects of the game.[snip]

I found this quote alarming.  I was thinking about picking it up, but I think I'm not the audience.

Well, you can fit your ship with a docking computer that will do it for you.  But I think it adds a lot to the experience to arrive at a station, request docking, and park your ship.  Feels authentic (the word I like to use when realistic doesn't make sense).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Typhon on May 07, 2015, 06:26:50 PM
I don't object to docking/undocking, I'm not saying that is a chore I think I'm too good for.  I'm alarmed that docking/undocking, what I would think would be a small footnote in an entire gaming session, are considered some of the best aspects of the game.

Maybe I'm reading too much into Falc's quote.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on May 07, 2015, 06:59:52 PM
It has been said before, but it really requires repeating. Elite Dangerous is not really going to be for players that need directed content with a hand crafted personal story line. E:D is more geared to those players who narrate a story in their head, who are more satisfied by the simulated act of flying your space ship around. Elite is definitely for the self directed sort of player.

Don't infer from that though, that I am saying that all self directed players are going to be happy with E:D, or that I am disrespecting the type of player that needs directed content and personal story lines. It is a perfectly valid gaming need and style.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on May 07, 2015, 07:12:13 PM
My major initial issue was actually with the requesting. I kept keyboard & mouse & game controllering it to see if I could get any kind of "please let me dock" to come up. The maneuvering didn't seem tough, it's just the interface for other stuff is 100 not intuitive and the tutorial doesn't tell you.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Engels on May 07, 2015, 07:42:19 PM
See, here's the thing: Flying in space is either realistic and hence completely boring and tedious, or just a spruced up arcade flight model with little pretenses to realism that can be very fun. Now, when someone says 'docking and undocking' is fun, I don't know if you guys are just so nostalgic for your original experience you'll put up with all sorts of drudgery or if somehow, by some inexplicable miracle, the act of essentially getting on and off a space station has been made fun. I've watched videos, and it doesn't clarify matters. Maybe the keystroke combos and turn maneuvers are so well done with the pretend space physics that it -is- a blast, but I can't see what a player's 'doing' on his keyboard/mouse to tell, so all I am left with is this sloth like drifting in and out of space statiosn who's graphics are, well, fine, but nothing to hold me there for longer than 15 minutes. Am I alone in this perception?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on May 07, 2015, 08:04:50 PM
Now, when someone says 'docking and undocking' is fun, I don't know if you guys are just so nostalgic for your original experience you'll put up with all sorts of drudgery or if somehow, by some inexplicable miracle, the act of essentially getting on and off a space station has been made fun.

It depends on what you mean by fun.  It's not pulse pounding exciting action, but you spend a lot of time interacting with stations, and docking and undocking holds the whole thing together.  Stick a loading screen in there instead and I'm willing to bet a lot of the game's charm falls apart. 

I didn't really play original elite and I find docking and undocking to be a big plus in the game, it makes me feel like I'm in that big space sandbox I want to be in.  If all you're after is dog fighting, then maybe having to go back to a station and dock to repair, refuel and buy new ammunition is going to feel tedious, and the extra few minutes it takes to manually dock is really going to bother you.  But for me, it's great.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on May 07, 2015, 08:09:06 PM
I think the docking aspect just adds a bit of finality to the journey - plus its not super easy, so doing a quick smooth and on the money landing provides it's own satisfaction. You don't do it for 20 mins, you do it for 2.

It's one of those skill based things: you do it because you have to, but because it takes a little skill you get a little 'ding!' out of it every time you do it well. I'm sure it'll be old hat soon, but then I expect my docking maneuvers to take even less time!

I find it similar to landing a (real) airplane smoothly. Or tying the perfect boy scout knot or playing a perfect game in baseball or any other skill-based accomplishment you can think of.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Engels on May 07, 2015, 08:19:59 PM
Ok, I get that. Thanks for explaining it well. Still don't think its going to get me to sign up, but at least now I don't consider the lot of you a bunch of nutcakes. Well, not total nutcakes anyway ;)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on May 08, 2015, 07:52:25 AM
For me there has been an immense satisfaction in using E:D to train myself to be able to operate every direction of thrust seamlessly and landing and takeoff is actually a pretty fun expression of that skill.

The only part of the game I don't like is the FSD navigation - the careful speed management as you approach a target is tedious and obnoxious and I just want to have a FSD autopilot.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on May 08, 2015, 07:56:36 AM
For me there has been an immense satisfaction in using E:D to train myself to be able to operate every direction of thrust seamlessly and landing and takeoff is actually a pretty fun expression of that skill.

The only part of the game I don't like is the FSD navigation - the careful speed management as you approach a target is tedious and obnoxious and I just want to have a FSD autopilot.

If you aim at your target and pt your throttle in the blue, you basically don't have to do much.  Some times passing too close to a planet or other body can cause you to sling shot and gain too much speed, but a lot of the time you essentially do have that autopilot.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on May 08, 2015, 08:09:30 AM
75% throttle is the sweet spot for never over shooting  a target in super cruise.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 08, 2015, 10:08:31 AM
New Peek of the Week shows what the Powerplay (patch 1.3) will look like. Basically, it's an EVE map, showing the zones of influence of the various human factions.

EDIT: The Beta for the 1.3 Powerplay update will start on May 20th.


(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Powerplay%20map%209545c1931e2f2eb88d8686d7cb3c37c5.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on May 09, 2015, 05:21:54 PM
How long before someone draws a dong with the influence map?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 11, 2015, 02:26:51 AM
Steam keys for everyone coming, regardless of where you purchased the game.

Quote
Hi everyone, Some breaking news for you: We’ll soon be offering Steam keys to anyone who bought Elite: Dangerous from the EliteDangerous.com store who would like a key, and to anyone who buys the game from our store in the future. We always appreciate it when you buy direct from our store because it means we can put more into supporting and developing Elite: Dangerous, but we know a number of long-time players and backers like to play through Steam and we think it’s fair everyone has that option, not just new players. Elite: Dangerous runs on Frontier’s servers, so we’ve been working with Valve to give you a way to seamlessly connect your Steam and existing Frontier accounts in a way that’s easy. It’s coming soon. From May 28 you’ll be able to generate a Steam key from your account page, and we’ll have full instructions right here on the forums closer to the time


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on May 11, 2015, 09:48:55 AM
Good. Glad they understand the value being connected to Steam brings to their customers.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on May 11, 2015, 10:06:53 AM
I decided to grab a Thrustmaster HOTAS and set it up for Elite:D to give it a whirl. I'm still getting use to the buttons, but a couple of observations: the throttle is pretty big and actually kinda annoying in it's largeness; there's not quite enough buttons, but pretty close; since the joystick and throttle are so large it's hard to get at the keyboard unless its off the side (for all those buttons you need but ran out of on the HOTAS); it's nice that the throttle has a positive stop for the neutral position; the joystick is nice but not any nicer than my now 10yo Sidewinder.

Overall, I may switch back to my old Sidewinder. Having the left hand on the keyboard and the right on the joystick worked really well, since you can use your left hand on QWERT/WASD to manipulate the screens very quickly. Joystick buttons reserved for dog fighting needs and a simple throttle lever. Going to play with the HOTAS a few more times before the final verdict.. I could see it being required when playing with a Rift, but until then might not be quiet useful enough for it's cumbersomeness.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on May 11, 2015, 11:23:01 AM
Essential stuff on the hotas,  voice attack for everything else. I have the really cheap thrustmaster hotas x. I like it alot.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on May 11, 2015, 11:58:53 AM
Good. Glad they understand the value being connected to Steam brings to their customers.

They didn't, as with many things they've had to be dragged kicking & screaming by players kicking up a fuss on the forums for weeks. Braben absolutely, categorically insisted that they wouldn't release it on Steam at all.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: tazelbain on May 11, 2015, 12:25:25 PM
How close are you guys to be able to set up shop in a quiet corner of the galaxy? That and steam could probably get me to buy.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 11, 2015, 12:30:49 PM
Apocrypha, your resentment towards this project is clouding your comments. First you loved it to the point of making a webshow about it when it was clearly too early for that. Then all of a sudden you burned out and started talking crap about it. While Elite Dangerous is not yet what lots of people (me and you) dream about, it's an extremely functional project, with serious and respected deadlines, an unheard of level of polish for these days, and no aggressive microtransactions or stupid business models. And it's going ahead full steam. The fact that they ARE giving out the Steam keys is a good thing, a bonus that costs them time and resources while giving the players NOTHING (since Steam will just launch the external client) and a thing that at this point they could have not delivered at all considering it was just the outcry of some spoiled brats who had already shelled out the cash anyway. So let's just rejoice for them doing one additional sensible thing in an industry that makes an art of doing the opposite.

Tazelbain: don't buy now. Wait for the release of Powerplay Patch in June.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on May 11, 2015, 01:15:18 PM
How close are you guys to be able to set up shop in a quiet corner of the galaxy? That and steam could probably get me to buy.

Since I mostly play in solo mode (because Open mode gets laggy!) I'm effectively in a quiet corner. But, whatever you do in solo mode translates to open play too - so you could move your ship to some god forsaken corner of some god forsaken galactic arm in solo mode and then play it in Open. Though there'd be no one there, so might as well stay in Solo mode!

I'd like to play in Open mode (because I like the idea of a more randomness than the NPCs can provide), but it gets real laggy in super cruise mode for me. No problems in solo play.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on May 11, 2015, 11:11:30 PM
Apocrypha, your resentment towards this project is clouding your comments.

Maybe, yes. However it's still a game I have an interest in and therefore follow it's progress. And it seems clear to me that it's still plagued by the same major problem that's dogged it from the start - Braben, his 'vision' and the dogmatic adulation that he commands from a sizable portion of the fan base.

The cult of personality surrounding him & the relative paucity of his vision (recreate the only really successful thing he's ever done) has resulted in a mediocre product when the promise was of so much more.

The Steam thing is a good example. Braben decided, for no good reason other than he didn't like the idea of giving Steam a cut, that he would distribute E:D alone. I don't know why he finally relented and talked to Valve but at that point there was really no question that it should be made available on Steam to everyone who'd bought it at any point. The ensuing (and predictable) battle on the forums between those who had their heads firmly up his arse and those who wanted Steam keys created completely unnecessary conflict and contributed further to the toxicity of the game's community.

Honestly I think this game could really start to flourish if Braben retired and his legion of lapdog, unquestioning fans all shut up.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lantyssa on May 12, 2015, 07:56:30 AM
Someone probably convinced him that Steam would give him a slightly larger following.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 12, 2015, 08:28:52 AM
And it does. I mean, at this point whoever says they are against Steam are either uninformed, or lying, or buying time. I don't think I am wrong when I say there are ZERO reasons not to go on Steam unless you are already incredibly succesful on your own. Steam takes 30% of all your transactions, so you don't make the move until you know the biggest part of your in-house sales is gone and/or unless you need a big boost in popularity. Even stupid MechWarrior is going on Steam in September, 3 years after launch, and they've always been very protective of their own money.

So, I am confident Braben spoke against Steam in the past because he was clueless, or he simply lied: if he ever admitted Elite was going to get on Steam at some point in the future lots of people would have just waited to get it on Steam stripping him of 30% of the profits.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on May 12, 2015, 11:55:22 AM
Steam is so much better for word of mouth games too. If your game is good, people will talk about it with their friends. And their friends will first look for it on Steam.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on May 12, 2015, 07:38:33 PM
Steam is so much better for word of mouth games too. If your game is good, people will talk about it with their friends. And their friends will first look for it on Steam.

The problem is that the game isn't good.  There are good aspects to it; namely the flight model, but it's an incredibly shallow, sterile experience.  It's just chasing a buck to upgrade to the next ship.  There's no real substance to the universe, no meaningful player interaction, and no real reason to play.  I enjoyed the treadmill for two weeks or so until I recognized the shallowness of the game.  Haven't been back since.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 13, 2015, 01:15:20 AM
Always depends on what you are looking for.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 is one of the highest rated (and grossing) games EVER on Steam. 98% positive reviews, 32362 positve out of 32858 and stable in the top 20 of the most played Steam games three years after launch. You can do infinitely less of what you can do in Elite Dangerous. Is that a good game?

Anyway, supposedly the upcoming patch is gonna fix some of those complains. Here's hoping, nothing more.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on May 13, 2015, 10:48:32 PM
I am having plenty of fun with it, but I have to agree that it is largely lacking a lot of necessary substance. The flight model's amazing, the sound design is incredible, but space is exhaustingly empty and featureless and there's so little to do. You can hop on Freelancer and have ten times more to do, which is incredible, because freelancer.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on May 14, 2015, 06:24:38 AM
Well, now that I can handle docking and a few other things, I'll have a look around. But I think it's easy to explain why folks expect there to be "something" out there to do--it's both the legacy of something like Freelancer and the fact that the entire galaxy is a bigger imaginative space than "driving across Europe in a truck" and thus much more loaded with expectations.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on May 14, 2015, 06:27:11 AM
I am having plenty of fun with it, but I have to agree that it is largely lacking a lot of necessary substance. The flight model's amazing, the sound design is incredible, but space is exhaustingly empty and featureless and there's so little to do. You can hop on Freelancer and have ten times more to do, which is incredible, because freelancer.

Yeah.  If you're going to have an empty universe lacking a lot of content then you'd damn well better make sure that players can shape the world and provide their own content for each other.  Unfortunately Braben's vision is stuck in 1984 and the game suffers because of it.  The game could have been fantastic and instead will just become a footnote.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 14, 2015, 06:39:15 AM
Look, I can't say what it's going to be like in a year, but why does everyone keep pretending this isn't getting lots of big updates every two months and the biggest one is arriving in a couple of weeks?

He could have pulled a Roberts and launch the thing in 2017. Maybe it would have been better, but who was going to fund that?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on May 14, 2015, 06:40:12 AM
I'd honestly rather have a "footnote" like Elite that has a focused scope and does what it is trying to do than a project like Star Citizen that is jumping out into that "imaginative space" and getting totally lost.  Is it one of the greatest games of all time? No.  Is it a solid space sim with good combat and enough to do to keep me occupied the amount I want to play it?  Absolutely. Maybe it's just because I didn't have high expectations for this game, but I feel like it has been a perfectly fine game that easily justified its purchase cost.

And as Falconeer said, it's getting better all the time anyway.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on May 14, 2015, 07:48:30 AM
I'd honestly rather have a "footnote" like Elite that has a focused scope and does what it is trying to do than a project like Star Citizen that is jumping out into that "imaginative space" and getting totally lost.  Is it one of the greatest games of all time? No.  Is it a solid space sim with good combat and enough to do to keep me occupied the amount I want to play it?  Absolutely. Maybe it's just because I didn't have high expectations for this game, but I feel like it has been a perfectly fine game that easily justified its purchase cost.

And as Falconeer said, it's getting better all the time anyway.

I guess I just see wasted potential with this game.  Yeah, it's fine for what it is.  Could it have been a whole lot more without an insane amount of resources thrown at it?  FUCK YES.  Star Ponzi is one really crazy end of the spectrum.  Let's not pretend like it either has to be this or that.

Most of what's crippling the game could have been remedied with some modest design changes.  Yeah, it's great that you modeled the entire Milky Way.  Was that a prudent choice as far as gameplay was concerned?  Probably not.  And then there was the decision to keep the game single player (but without content), and to add in really lackluster multiplayer just to tick a box.  Make a choice, either make a compelling single player experience with content that goes beyond "randomly generated pirate attacks you again" or make a for real multiplayer experience where players can impact the world.  This "some of this, some of that" shit is the worst of both worlds.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on May 14, 2015, 01:18:41 PM
You can have huge amounts of procedurally-generated space that is still populated by some kind of procedurally-generated surprises and threats. I don't feel that's a challenge that takes you into the ridonkulousness of Star Citizen.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on May 15, 2015, 09:55:51 AM
When you see it...

(http://hosting.zaonce.net/elite/newsletters/newsletter_201505_15/1ea9dfd4ec6815f2b39e8b0d21707b10/cae0669187ec706245063a9799f574b5.jpg) (http://hosting.zaonce.net/elite/newsletters/newsletter_201505_15/1ea9dfd4ec6815f2b39e8b0d21707b10/cae0669187ec706245063a9799f574b5.jpg)



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on May 15, 2015, 11:11:15 AM
Is that an actual person in that seat? Finally!  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on May 18, 2015, 11:42:22 AM
I wrote out a short copy you can c/p anyone to if they are trying to up ranks to get ships

Quote
Currently, the faction rank system is very broken and confusing and it is easy to get stuck not knowing how to progress. If you want to gain ranks, here's your guide:

Get allied with as many minor allegiant factions as possible. You have to become allied with a whole host of minor factions that are allied with the MAJOR faction you are trying to get ranks with. For instance, if you want naval ranks in the Empire, you need to move among many different Empire systems and gain the Allied status with minor factions that pledge allegiance to the Empire.

There is a bug that prevents you from knowing which minor factions you are actually allied with, and you have to work around that fact. If you are allied with a major faction, ALL associated minor factions will show as allied, even if you are not actually allied with them. You have NO WAY to know which factions you are actually allied with (which won't give you any progress to your next naval ascension), and which you can actually use to gain progress to naval ascension. This is a majorly annoying bug. You have to hunt down very minor factions that are in systems you have never been to (since that way you can be reasonably sure that you're actually adding progress to your naval ascension) and do rep missions for them for a while until you stop seeing any "this faction does not trust you enough" missions from them in their stations. Once this happens, you can presume you are probably allied with them and move on to another minor faction someplace else you have never been.

It is best to use the galaxy map and hunt down tiny, system-specific factions in places you have never visited. If you are trying to gain Empire ranks, you have to have allied status with a lot of different minor groups that pledge allegiance to the Empire. These include the obvious ones like Empire League, Empire Pact, etc, but you can't really know which of these you have maxed out allegiance with. So try to find any local faction like the ones that are named after the system they are found in. These super-small system specific minor factions are perfect for naval ascension progress since you can presume you aren't actually allied with any from systems you have never spent time in. You can find these by hunting around the galaxy map and looking at the stations. Here is a perfect example, in the Kambo system:

(http://i.imgur.com/uSdRDZG.png)

As you can see here, the faction's name is "Defence Party of Kambo" and its allegiance is with the Empire. If you have never been in the Kambo system, you probably have no standing with the Defence Party of Kambo, and you could travel to this station and start doing reputation missions for them or bounty hunting in the system for cash.

Make sure you are only doing missions for factions allied with the major faction you are trying to gain ranks with. You can go to a system and look at the Status / System Status on your right hand screen, and it will show you all of the active factions in a system. The minor factions you want to impress will have the symbol for the major faction next to their name. The others are, as I understand it, irrelevant to your progress. So if I am in a system and the System Status shows these factions:

(http://i.imgur.com/5lUza3q.png)

Here, if I am trying to gain naval ranks with the Empire, I want to do missions for the United Prydereti Front and the Nasaraudi Company, since the icons show they are Empire allied factions. Or if I was trying to gain naval ranks with the Federation, I would do Confederation of Nasaraudi. And the Nasaraudi Dominion and the Jet Mob are independent factions so they don't do anything for naval factions and their missions can be completely ignored.

Okay! So I found a little pissant corner of the universe with a minor faction I have never interacted with before, and landed in a station controlled by them. Now what? You have two options.

Do missions for the faction. It gets you influence faster but you don't get anything else out of it except for expenses.

- Always do charity missions. If you see missions come up that are asking for a donation of food, agri-medicines, weapons, slaves, etc, always take it, go find the requisite resource, and return it to them ASAP.

- Courier missions are also good, since all you have to do is drop off a message at another station and then return.

- If you can find them, Kill X Pirates missions are totally fine, since you can just hop off to an RES or nav beacon and farm for a while and get some returns on bounty while also earning faction points.

- Don't do stuff like assassination missions or anything else that wastes a lot of your time, since you don't want to have to abandon missions. If an assassination mission bugs out, you have to quit it and this loses you standing. Basically, don't do those terrible missions that you don't do anymore because they're obviously terrible and

Your second option is to hop around and bounty hunt pirates in systems with minor allied factions. I did this for a while and it seems to eventually get you allied standing with the minor noncriminal factions in a system, and you're farming cash in the meanwhile. I am not sure this works very well so if it turns out to be terrible advice after all, feel free to strike it from this list and brand me with the shame of my errors. If it does work, though, you should bounty hunt in a system until you don't see any "this faction does not trust you enough" missions in stations, then move on to the next pissant system to impress their quaint assemblage of backwater nothings with your trifle heroics.

Eventually, the naval ascension mission comes up. When it does, pull up your favorite elite dangerous trade guide and find the closest seller of the things they are looking for, or go hunt down the unidentified signal sources in the target system, or whatever. The missions themselves are usually super easy and conclude super fast. You'll see multiples show up a lot of the time but only one completion will count per rank.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 27, 2015, 12:16:39 AM
Powerplay Beta is up.
If you are curious about how it works... here's a 9 pages instructions pdf for you.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=147543&p=2277714#post2277714


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on May 27, 2015, 05:10:35 PM
Beta Change Log (some of it):

Quote
New Content/Features:

- Powerplay added
- Power map views added to galaxy map
- Added power information and action screens
- Power specific ship modules added
- Power specific ambient traffic added
- Spawn AI to hunt player if they defect
- Power specific goods and actions added
- Playable ship Imperial Courier added
- Playable ship Diamondback added
- Cargo/Mining chunk collection drones added
- Fuel transfer drones added
- Prospector drones added
- Mission system overhaul
- Inbox integration for branching missions
- Missions scaling up based on rank
- Missions scaling up based on reputation with mission giver
- Mission targets can be generated in supercruise rather than USSs
- Spawned AI difficulty determined by mission (if spawned by mission)
- Missions requiring only mineable materials added
- Revamped military progression missions
- Added Founders and Elite ranked missions
- More mission variants added
- Chatter tables updated
- Updated bounty system
- Bounties cannot be paid off (Pilot's Fed contact is gone!), but expire after 7 days.
- Major factions don't record crimes anymore, only minor factions. (You may have major faction stuff in your saves left over from the previous system).
- Fines now take 7 days to expire, but never coexist with bounties (bounties absorb fines and dormant bounties with the same faction).
- Expiry only actually happens when you login, hyperspace or resurrect. (This stops cases of "I attacked a wanted ship that had no bounty a few seconds ago")
- Friendly fire values relaxed
- Add select nav target functionality to system map
- Add mining bonus for mining operations within extraction sites
- Added Painite as a minable commodity
- Added osmium as a minable commodity
- Added low and high intensity resource extraction site scenarios
- Loan ceiling scales based on player's highest Elite rank
- Founder decal now gold
- Added crimes for reckless flying (collisions) within starport no fire zones:
- Shields only collisions above speed limit is a fine
- Hull damage only above speed limit is a larger fine
- Ship destruction within short window after collision above speed limit is a bounty
- Respects 'Report crimes against me' setting
- Allow any general purpose slot on any ship to contain a fuel tank module
- Show progress to next PF rank
- NPC chatter works in supercruise
- Added rank up messages and animations to inbox


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on May 27, 2015, 07:53:57 PM
Quote
- Bounties cannot be paid off (Pilot's Fed contact is gone!), but expire after 7 days.

So if I accidentally nick a defense force ship while bounty hunting I'm just boned for seven days?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on May 28, 2015, 01:23:11 AM
Pretty sure they fixed that months ago -  you don't get a bounty for a accidentally hitting another ship, only if you cause sustained shield or hull damage.

Edit:

Patch 1.1 Notes (10th Feb)

Quote
- When the player accidentally hits an AI ship damage is accumulated. If a threshold is exceeded (by multiple hits or a powerful weapon like a rail-run), the ship turns hostile. The AI ship will "forget" the damage before it turns hostile:
1) if the AI ship recharges its shield to 100%.
2) if a (currently 30 sec) timer runs out.

From the 1.1 Beta notes

Quote
When you shoot and hit a vessel you may be able to avoid committing a crime based on the following criteria:
· The ship was *NOT* targeted by you – targeted ships cannot benefit from these rules
· The ship was shielded – if you cause hull damage you will not benefit from these rules
· The damage was minor – powerful weapons cannot benefit from these rules.
· The damage is infrequent – repeated attacks cannot benefit from these rules.
If you have allied reputation with an NPC ship’s affiliated minor faction, the damage thresholds for turning a ship hostile are increased and the “must be shielded criteria” is removed.
If you are in a conflict zone the damage thresholds for turning allied ships hostile are significantly increased, and the “must be shielded” criteria is removed.

So if you're getting a bounty for hitting defence ships, you're either encountering a bug or need to go easy on the trigger.   :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 28, 2015, 02:42:47 AM
When he said 'Accidentally Nick', I'm fairly sure he was talking about Global Thermonuclear War.

Would you like to play a game ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on May 28, 2015, 09:21:48 AM
According to this thread (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=148965), it is now possible to generate a Steam key for existing accounts.

BUT...

Doing so means that you associate your ED account with your Steam account and Valve will take their cut of any purchases you make, whether it's through Steam or through the ED store. IE Frontier don't get 100% of ship skin purchases etc. (This needs further clarification but it's strongly indicated by Dev response further down that thread).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 28, 2015, 10:36:30 AM
Honestly, I don't feel bad cause I've already given them 120€ abd the in-game purchases are pretty underwhelming anyway. So, thanks for the link!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on May 31, 2015, 03:01:43 PM
Anyone with a sufficiently powerful ship will blast straight through the threshold they put in the game in an instant if a system patrol ship flies between them and the pirate. This has happened to me twice in very short succession today while RES hunting. One interception of the twin heavy pulse lasers and that's it, you're a criminal bub


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Setanta on June 01, 2015, 02:27:33 AM
IE Frontier don't get 100% of ship skin purchases etc.

I gave up on this game I'm afraid - it's on my "really must go back and give it another shot list" but why would I buy a skin for a ship that I can't actually see for 99% of the actual game.

I think EvE ruined me - I want to see my ship flying or station spinning rather than be locked to the cockpit :(


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 01, 2015, 03:28:24 AM
Not that it changes the gameplay, but they added aan external camera three months ago.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on June 01, 2015, 04:58:25 AM
This a good time to pick this up? I've paid off my depts so I have a little extra money for the moment till the next financial crises hits.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 01, 2015, 06:30:25 AM
After Powerplay's launch, which should be in a couple of weeks (it's in public-ish beta right now).

But I am sad to say that my first impressions of Powerplay are that... not enough/much changed. As long as "solo play" will be available, there will never be enough life or interaction in what is an immense universe. Powerplay is grat on paper but so far (again, first impressions) it will play out as a glorified,entirely soloable, faction grind. Even the premises to craete a conflict between players are ruined by the afore-mentioned offline functionalities, and the progression, although improved, is too directionless to feel engaging. Even as a sandbox, there's too many missing things (crafting of any kind for example would help), and as an exploration game it doesn't provide any adventure or enough surprises.

Given how Powerplay, which was supposed to be a bit of a game-changer, does NOT change the game, I am starting to believe this will never really blossom. Great at what it does, and fantastic as an upgrade of the 1984 version one, it might be not enough for 2015-me especially because this still almost feels like a DOWNGRADE of the 1993 version.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on June 01, 2015, 06:51:43 AM
Well, the game was never meant to be an MMO.  It sounds like you want it to be.  As a co-op game I've been having a fine time with it.  It's not the last game I'll ever play or something, but this seems just to be a difference in expectation than anything. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 01, 2015, 07:47:41 AM
It's not just that. Even though they said multiple times "it's an MMO", Braben himself said it and they repeated it multiple times. But it's not just that. Yes I agree, it's a difference in expectations, as I still think it's a great product and piece of software.

Look, I've been telling Apocrypha this whole time right here "what were you expecting?". And now I am very close to join the ranks of those who were expecting "more" simply because while it's true that they keep adding a lot of things, what they add is directed grind instead of anything that makes you care other than getting the next big ship. Galnet news events are interesting but the implementation is still too cold and automatic. Powerplay so far is a perfect example of nice feature on paper that simply fails to be fun in practice. And that's the only reason why today for the first time I am a bit demoralized about Elite Dangerous. It really seems they nailed dow a lot great things, but have no ideas on where to *expand* instead of just *refine*.

The worst feeling is that the universe in the game is several million star systems, but they are all so similar to each other that it feels like there are nothing more than FIVE star systems. I can travel ten thousands light years, and there's never anything new or surprising that can happen. For example, they should have introduced NPCs a long time ago and help give some Personality to at least some of the stations. Instead, Powerplay is a glorified version of Community Goals that in theory gives people a reason to fight each other, while in practice allows everyone to carry out objective "offline" so no one really has to fight anyone else. And at the same time, all bases still look the same, all bulletin boards still look the same, all signal sources still look the same and pretty much all missions still look the same.

I am not giving up on this because I do believe they'll keep adding stuff and maybe at some point they'll finally add what motivates me to keep going instead of just loving it... without wanting to play more. But that makes me realize that maybe I didn't even have too high expectations for from Elite: Dangerous, as much as I had high expectations for the Powerplay patch. To me Elite Dangerous is a great game, without any longevity. They need to patch that in.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on June 01, 2015, 07:52:10 AM
I guess my question is what does "giving up on this" even mean?  You aren't paying a monthly fee to play.  I don't play this thing every day.  A couple times a week, I fire it up and get my space-sim on.  I think I paid 35 bucks for this game.  I've easily gotten that much out of it already.  It's not the game I think about when I'm not playing it, I don't eagerly fire it up the second I get home every day.  But when I play it, I'm having a good time.  I totally get what you're saying, it just doesn't drastically change the way I'm playing the game.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on June 01, 2015, 03:46:13 PM
From what I've seen if they yanked the "offline Mode" they game would immediate turn into the same sort of ganking massacre simulation that Eve online was when it first started and to some extent still is. "No hand holding sandbox" means  20 or so 15 year old's on the undock blowing people up and giggling about how leet they are. Its sad to say but the biggest flaw of not having an online mode would be the players playing the damn game. If you didn't have players a totally online mode would work fine  :why_so_serious:

I enjoyed coming back to eve because there was finally a way for me to make money while avoiding all the idiots and just exploring and have a good time by myself. But even the mighty Eve systems are totally samey. There are only 4 types of interiors and not that much variation on exteriors for stations, and most of the time when you are off scanning you are in an empty system with no station anyway. Even the sites you find are just 3 or 4 variations on a theme and that has gotten samey.

Sounds like E:D would be right up my alley then. I think you need to either send your concerns to the developers or change your expectations falc.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on June 02, 2015, 12:55:39 AM
Look, I've been telling Apocrypha this whole time right here "what were you expecting?". And now I am very close to join the ranks of those who were expecting "more" simply because while it's true that they keep adding a lot of things, what they add is directed grind instead of anything that makes you care other than getting the next big ship.

I'm sorry for piping up again, but this really was what my problem with E:D was, and still is.

It wasn't that I burned out on it, it was that I gradually became aware that the entirely reasonable expectations for this game were never going to be met. And by reasonable expectations I mean the expectations that the game, on release, would be fun & interesting, would be a modern game worthy of playing, would avoid forcing the player to repeat boring actions over and over again just to increment some numbers to let you repeat those actions again, faster.

All the while I was playing the beta I was saying to myself "this is only beta, this obvious placeholder mechanic for trading/combat/mining/ship upgrading/landing/etc. is going to be replaced with the REAL mechanic or system by launch date". Except none of them ever were. When I realised that the poor, unimaginative, out-dated implementation of every single game system was what Braben's vision actually was, well, then I bailed. The game is, for all the blather about billions of star systems, boring, repetitive and shallow, and none of the expansions are going to change that because Braben has zero imagination and has learned nothing in all the decades since Elite.

I didn't have outrageous expectations, I had entirely reasonable ones, and they were absolutely unmet.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on June 02, 2015, 01:29:21 PM
When I realised that the poor, unimaginative, out-dated implementation of every single game system was what Braben's vision actually was, well, then I bailed.

I don't know whether or not he has imagination, but I think his "vision" is delivering on the nostalgia of Elite, exactly.  I mean, I got the distinct impression that they're not implementing any of the improvements to spaceflight sims because they want to deliver the "feel" of Elite, and it's a dated game so the "feel" feels dated.

I argued on the boards (long ago) about changing the death insurance system because it felt stupid, and even the fans pointed out that it wouldn't feel like Elite if any changes were made.  So ok I don't want to play this game then.  My biggest issue, though, was camera shake on landing that gave me eye strain pain, with nobody acknowledging my complaint or adding a "turn camera shake off" toggle over several patches.  I have no clue if it's still on with no options, probably still is.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hoax on June 02, 2015, 08:33:24 PM
vanguard. in spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace

even the E:D thread is boring, at least SC has a truly fearsome cult and life destruction stories to gawk at.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on June 03, 2015, 06:09:14 AM
I really like Elite:Dangerous, however, I play it mainly as a space ship sim only in small time chunks. I can see how I would be super bored and disappointed if I gave it more time than I do.

I also think it helps that my expectation was that it was going to be a literal copy of original elite with modern graphics.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on June 05, 2015, 08:22:16 AM
"Powerplay" update launches today! Here's a trailer for it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWPhk5Gclbo


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on June 06, 2015, 01:13:15 AM
Just looked at the specs for this and my computer burst out crying. Guess I'll just buy Tropico instead :P


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on June 06, 2015, 02:11:58 PM
how does one find a high intensity RES that is of any intensity shy of "ghost town"

how does one pay the exorbitant ship integrity repair fees and be able to profitably explore

what's going on with this patch yo


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 06, 2015, 03:06:47 PM
I can't really answer that, I am sorry, but I'm here to post the first "Powerplay video" that Frontier released today trying to highlight and explain the intricacies of the new system. Complicated enough that the whole series will be made of 4 parts.

It's worth watching, cause it's pretty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWcL8qEGg7Q


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on June 06, 2015, 04:56:30 PM
Here is my short explanation of the powerplay update.

RES bounty hunting is ruined.
Ship modules sell back for a 10 percent loss.
Pledging to a power yields no real rewards for the effort.
Mining is still boring as shit.
Mission running is mildly more rewarding than before.
Compared to before the update, game is grind x2.

That is all. I have no idea what Frontier is trying to do, but I have no fun now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 07, 2015, 03:06:43 AM
They shifted the combat money from RES to CZ. Which is a good move in my opinion, as RES were riskless and CZs are not.
The 10% module loss is on hold, I believe, isn't it?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on June 07, 2015, 10:25:45 AM
i can't get any money anywhere and the remaining methodology to gain money is twice as boring and provides at most a third to half the income as before.

The costs on ship repairs for integrity make it so I can't do long runs or exploration.

I'm basically just losing money fast now and when I try powerplay stuff it is twice as boring and provides pretty much literally no money.

What the hell do I do?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on June 07, 2015, 10:56:09 AM
You celebrate the Eve Online experience.

(Meaning this is like Eve Online, to be clear)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on June 07, 2015, 11:44:56 AM
pleh.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on June 07, 2015, 04:51:56 PM
Ok so this is officially a Bad Patch. Please someone give me someplace I can go system-wise to do combat bonds.

I don't know where they are or how to find them help


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 08, 2015, 02:32:10 AM
Not sure this (http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/3909af/bounty_hunting_in_13_and_system_security_levels/) will help you, maybe.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on June 08, 2015, 08:37:15 AM
That does kinda! I will follow that particular inquiry and see where it goes and what they find (and if the currently bafflingly broke RES's get retuned)

I'm still hunting down a way to do combat bonds instead.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on June 08, 2015, 08:55:01 AM
We should be able to access galnet as soon as we jump into a system and have access to the nav beacon. That was we could scan the news for that system super easy and see if there is a war on or not.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 08, 2015, 10:19:03 AM
Part 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y379hkuSoCA) and Part 3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugdhzV_nefQ) of the Pretty Powerplay tutorial.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on June 11, 2015, 03:13:40 PM
Alright, so Powerplay is bad in a way that most E:D supporters aren't really equipped to see, unless they themselves have hit a reasonable burnout point on the grind. And where it's bad it's really, really quite bad.

It does nothing to alleviate or diversify grind, since it only offers a parallel new grind (and goddamn is it grindy as fuck) for less tangible progress than you already have in a game which already hits a giant grind wall.

It's the sort of thing that comes part and parcel with gradually increasing loss of users, no matter what logic is used to defend the game by the core supporters, I suppose. It can't be a really popular opinion to just up and say "powerplay is bad and intensifies rather than ameliorates the game's lack of basic fun things to do"


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on June 11, 2015, 03:20:45 PM
Solution for duration of crisis:

- Join Arissa Lavigny-Duval.

- Grind up 100 merit points using any method you can tolerate the dullness of.

- Turn them in and get the Rank 2 loyalty bonus, with the accompanying 20% bounty increase.

- As Lavigny-Duval is currently the second most powerful faction, aforementioned bounty increase is now 40%.

- Lavigny-Duval also provides a 20% increase on all bounties handed in in her systems.

- Promptly ignore Powerplay, and go RES bounty hunting at normal (not high or low intensity) RES's, and enjoy your 160% bounty return rate.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 11, 2015, 03:23:52 PM
What's weird is that the three actions you can choose to do, prepare, expand and control, are not really that different in terms of gameplay from each other or from anything you were doing before Powerplay. Worse, they are LESS rewarding unless you care for some flags on a map that you are almost certainly not going to be able to move by yourself, so the illusion if being part of a nation is just that: an illusion. And this is my own take which is not popular but AS LONG AS YOU CAN PLAY OFFLINE Powerplay is a joke. A whole expansion that is meant to give players reasons to go to certain areas and fight for control (including the ability to shoot each other) is made insignificant by the abily everyone has to still grind Powerplay quests while NOT being online (so only fighting the AI but still affecting the online balance of Powers). Ugh.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on June 11, 2015, 05:31:03 PM
I tried to voice some of my observations on the official forums regarding some of the problems regarding powerplay. I got shouted down pretty quickly.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 11, 2015, 11:30:08 PM
Powerplay can't even be defended with the "OLD ELITE" mantra. It's new, it sounds great on paper, it has potential, but it does NOT work in its present incarnation.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on June 12, 2015, 10:28:03 AM
On a more analytical level it honestly doesn't even feel like the best investment of resources — the game has a number of parts that need to be plugged up hardcore.

If I were in charge of the game I could have plugged a serious number of holes in the core gameplay for half as much effort. Including but not limited to overhauling the bulletin board mission system and offering actual tours of duty.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on June 12, 2015, 11:48:36 AM
You already bought the game, they don't care about /your/ feelings.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 12, 2015, 12:20:31 PM
That's not true though. They need to sell you the expansion, and they definitely need you to rave about the game to seel more boxes.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on June 12, 2015, 02:42:48 PM
You already bought the game, they don't care about /your/ feelings.

Evidently, yeah. But adding to this game is obviously an added expense and costs plenty of man hours, so I would only presume they intend to have the fruit of those labors pay off with a more playable game that people will continue to buy and/or microtrans, or otherwise keep the property viable enough for future expansion that can be sold. If no, then why bother making that investment at all?

As it stands they're definitely spending the money, but not in ways that keep the property vitalized.

The largest problems I see are these:



1. The game is an infinite selection of the same three environments separated by a banal frame shift traversal method that becomes old for the vast majority of players very fast. Spacedock, Open space, Asteroid belt. Repetition in the themes are extreme. You can travel the galaxy and only ultimately be meaningfully interfacing with these three locations. Variety is often very minimal.

2. The game further distills the limited selection of environments down to a painfully small amount of actions that you repeat to progress in the game. Repetitious corkscrewing across FSD space to land ships and collect money via trading, or repetitious shooting of hapless pirates to collect money via bounties, or repetitious dodging of stars in the infinite three to four action process that constitutes exploration. Or, for a hearty band of masochists, you can mine rocks — the glittering Tritanium-level standard of wasting your life away In Space™ (appropriately, it's extra grueling and inferior as a profit choice in Elite, so it's how you spot the true masochists).

3. You can do other things but they are often so minimally viable for profit and/or so frustratingly obtuse that most players will never bother. The bulletin board system has required drastic overhaul since forever and missions are one of the weakest parts of the game, a glaring failure that is relatively easily remedied, but is not.

Last but not least — a statement which is so powerfully true in its simplicity that only a bare minimum of Elite players will dare acknowledge it:

4. The weapons balance in the game is extremely poor, which ultimately means that the combat model in the game is necessarily also extremely poor.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on June 12, 2015, 02:54:14 PM
But is it fun? :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on June 12, 2015, 05:38:18 PM
I'm satisfied with my purchase ($free) and could tell you how to get like 10-20 bucks worth out of this game as an adventure in learning spaceflight.

As for the overall fun factor, I am not sure whoever is in charge of the project at present is going to have a real good time with the present maintenance of active players.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 15, 2015, 10:38:26 AM
Looks like some insane Death Racing PvP mode is coming to Elite. Here, straight from the E3 Xbox trailer.

Ye gods.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG5J5hCAC4c


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Draegan on June 16, 2015, 08:20:25 AM
When I tried the game when it was released, it felt like the game was just a game of daily quests from WOW but with all the landing and taking off etc.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on June 16, 2015, 08:45:32 AM
When I tried the game when it was released, it felt like the game was just a game of daily quests from WOW but with all the landing and taking off etc.
That's a much better comparison than what I could come up with.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on July 20, 2015, 08:13:13 AM
*rolls into thread*

hey did they change anything meaningful about the game grind how we doing thanks

*falls off thread*


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 20, 2015, 08:27:17 AM
No not at all. And the next thing on the horizon is a PvP arena where you don't even use your own ships.

There's some hope curiosity for August 5th when they will announce something big and new at Gamescon. So far, no idea of what it could be.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Furiously on July 20, 2015, 02:38:16 PM
Walking in stations.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on July 20, 2015, 07:26:30 PM
Elite is turning into a giant grindy shit show for no other reason than grognard developers trying to recapture the nut punching insanity of the original elite in shiny new graphics.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: HaemishM on July 21, 2015, 09:24:45 AM
To be fair, that was their pitch for the game.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on July 21, 2015, 09:28:42 AM
It really was.  I haven't loaded this up in about a month now, but I like that it's there for when I'm in the mood for this style game.  It's not he be all and end all space sim, but it's pretty good at what it is trying to do.  But hey, compared to the Star Citizen saga, at least this game basically delivered the game they promised, even if it is a bit boring sometimes.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on July 21, 2015, 02:30:54 PM
I played a shit-ton of all of the previous Elites, and yes there was grind. However, something about this version has no soul. It is literally pointless grind with no real feeling of reward. For instance, when I went from a Vulture into my new Clipper, I literally felt nothing. I just realized that I was going to need to grind about a thousand more high end bounties in a HiRes before I could move into a python.

The previous Elite games really rewarded you well for the grind. This Elite is basically missing a juicy carrot at the end of the stick.

I am not even going to get started on Power Play.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 21, 2015, 02:48:58 PM
The previous Elites did NOT reward you well for the grind. It's US. We were different back then.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on July 21, 2015, 03:00:22 PM
I'm still convinced that 90 percent of the problem is that missions are garbage.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on July 21, 2015, 03:00:39 PM
"The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death"


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 24, 2015, 03:49:41 PM
From today's newsletter.

Quote
we're almost in place to make a colossal announcement at Gamescom in two weeks' time.

Colossal? My attention, you have it.


EDIT:

From the same newsletter.

Quote
So far an incredible 11.3 million systems have been explored by players. At the current rate of play the Elite: Dangerous community will have charted the galaxy's 400 billion star systems in 23,417 years. We'll be finished by the year 25,432, so here's hoping 255th century computers are PC compatible.

 :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: CaptainNapkin on July 25, 2015, 01:28:54 PM
Picked this up on Xbox One since it's only $30.09 during preview, and I had $15 of cashed in Bing rewards so why not. Probably not the game for me but I needed something to leisurely tool around in when I'm not in the mood for FPS or actiony games... like on a Friday night. It looks decent enough on the One and the controls work pretty good. I didn't play this on PC. I'm so clueless, it does not hold your hand, couldn't even figure out how to find my mission target or find a station last night. Could have been the bourbon though. Watched all the noob videos while having my coffee this morning so I'll give it another run. Reddit has a fairly friendly Xbox community going so far and since they haven't been playing long they aren't jaded yet, I'm sure it will get there. When I look over at the main Elite subreddit, I'm amused by the rage... from folks with hundreds of hours of play time... didn't they get their money's worth already?  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 25, 2015, 02:03:30 PM
I played a shit-ton of all of the previous Elites, and yes there was grind. However, something about this version has no soul. It is literally pointless grind with no real feeling of reward. For instance, when I went from a Vulture into my new Clipper, I literally felt nothing. I just realized that I was going to need to grind about a thousand more high end bounties in a HiRes before I could move into a python.

The previous Elite games really rewarded you well for the grind. This Elite is basically missing a juicy carrot at the end of the stick.

I am not even going to get started on Power Play.

Yeah, I'm going to side with Falconeer here :  This is bullshit.  I played the original Elite and you weren't rewarded Jack Shit.  Once you'd got your Iron Ass and some money in the bank, it was solid fucking grind to Elite.  No new ship, no new upgrades, no new nothing.  There were about 4 missions.  When you talk about 'previous Elites' I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.  Frontier was too bugged to even fucking play and the grind was even worse, despite the ability to change ships...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 27, 2015, 05:30:57 AM
Yeah, I'm going to side with Falconeer here :  This is bullshit.  I played the original Elite and you weren't rewarded Jack Shit.  Once you'd got your Iron Ass and some money in the bank, it was solid fucking grind to Elite.  No new ship, no new upgrades, no new nothing.  There were about 4 missions.  When you talk about 'previous Elites' I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.  Frontier was too bugged to even fucking play and the grind was even worse, despite the ability to change ships...

Come on, that's not true and you know it isn't. You could definitely upgrade your lasers.



And buy a fuel scoop.

 :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 27, 2015, 05:34:50 AM
That was implicit in 'Iron Ass'.

Military lasers, energy bomb, extra energy units.  Basically, once you had your item list full, the game was over apart from the grind.

And this comes from someone who made ELITE after what seemed like years of grinding on the Amstrad version.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 27, 2015, 06:14:45 AM
I got to Deadly. Then the tape on my save game cassette snapped.

I still have my Amstrad version of Elite though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sparky on July 27, 2015, 06:28:43 AM
Frontier had better missions.  Bombing secret bases and shit made you feel bad ass.  Even the delivery missions felt cooler when you'd be chugging away and some guy intercepts you because that stuff was military secrets or whatever.

ED doesn't develop farther than "deliver/fetch a thing" or my favorite "some dude might be somewhere please kill him.  Or maybe you'll never encounter him ever it's a wonderful mystery".

They seriously need to work on the missions before I'll have another look.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Draegan on July 27, 2015, 06:45:35 AM
The few hours I played the game was a mystery to me. Even the UI/Nav stuff was dumb. You would say go kill a guy and I wouldn't even know where to start looking. So I never logged in again after I ran out of fuel and the money I had barely made up for the trip to the station and I couldn't repair shit.

Then I said this game was dumb.

I never played the original, so I have no nostalgia bias.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 27, 2015, 02:20:51 PM
Frontier had better missions.  Bombing secret bases and shit made you feel bad ass.  Even the delivery missions felt cooler when you'd be chugging away and some guy intercepts you because that stuff was military secrets or whatever.

ED doesn't develop farther than "deliver/fetch a thing" or my favorite "some dude might be somewhere please kill him.  Or maybe you'll never encounter him ever it's a wonderful mystery".

They seriously need to work on the missions before I'll have another look.

They did a small overhaul of missions in 1.3 but some of the things you're referring to have been around for longer than that (like branching missions after being intercepted by an NPC). Assassination targets will now apparently spawn in Supercruise and can be interdicted. In fact, watching a guy take on a mission and chase his target over several systems with the use of the Wake Scanner and Interdictor was far better than I remember Frontier ever being.

Slowly but surely they're making some good improvements to the game. Unfortunately, these are generally offset by things like the Powerplay shit. Not that interested in the PvP thing either unless they add some of the environments to the main game as well.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 27, 2015, 02:27:49 PM
Powerplay could have been an improvement in that direction if they put a bit more soul in it instead of an automated grind. Wasted chance.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 27, 2015, 02:40:30 PM
Yup, totally agree. Also, it goes back to rewarding people who have time to play for hours and hours and hours and so on and penalizes people who have, you know, a job or family (or both) and like to cook real meals, and shit in a toilet rather than a sock.

It says a lot when some of the main E:D proponents, streamers and bloggers (and novel authors) get together and agree that Powerplay has turned them off playing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 27, 2015, 02:55:45 PM
Which is odd in a way as it can be 100% ignored. I guess that it felt like such a slap in the face once we all realized what the hell it was and how many resources went (wasted) into it that it felt like the right time to take a break.

Super cuirious about the "colossal announcement" coming next week, by the way.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 27, 2015, 05:28:02 PM
Which is odd in a way as it can be 100% ignored. I guess that it felt like such a slap in the face once we all realized what the hell it was and how many resources went (wasted) into it that it felt like the right time to take a break.

Super cuirious about the "colossal announcement" coming next week, by the way.

Yeah, me too - but tempering expectations in case it's something mundane like "1.4 released next week!" rather than "Thargoid Invasion!"


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on July 30, 2015, 04:03:56 PM
Powerplay didn't turn them off playing in the traditional sense. It didn't take anything away from the game experience, per se.

It's just that it ended up being nothing but more grind, and people's patience for that was already worn thin.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 31, 2015, 02:20:28 AM
More hype:

Quote
We’ve been working very hard for a long time on some truly mouthwatering new features which fundamentally transform the game, and are about to come to fruition - we’ll be making a big announcement at Gamescom next week!

"Fundamentally transform the game".


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on July 31, 2015, 05:01:54 AM
They're adding a drinks serving mini-game for passengers on the Orca?

 :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on July 31, 2015, 02:50:55 PM
Breathing in space will now be a feature.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on July 31, 2015, 02:57:06 PM
They are copying ARK and you'll need to poop in space?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on August 01, 2015, 06:48:16 PM
bitcoin micropayments


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 05, 2015, 01:12:30 AM
Planetary Landing confirmed!

Expansion called Horizons coming this Christmas.

Here's the website: https://www.elitedangerous.com/en/horizons

Here's the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4sAe16UTDg

Here's the blurb:

Quote
ELITE DANGEROUS: HORIZONS IS A NEW SEASON OF MAJOR GAMEPLAY EXPANSIONS FOR ELITE DANGEROUS, BEGINNING WITH PLANETARY LANDINGS ACROSS THE ELITE DANGEROUS GALAXY.

Elite Dangerous: Horizons launches this Holiday. The first expansion, Planetary Landings introduces players to planet surfaces and the first all-new Surface Recon Vehicle (SRV) the ‘Scarab’. Scanning airless planets and moons brings new gameplay as players detect signals, crashed ships, mineral deposits, outposts and fortresses. Alone or with friends players will explore, mine and engage hostile forces as they attempt to infiltrate strongholds guarding valuable rewards. Players will explore new worlds, coasting over mountaintops, diving into canyons, landing on the surface and rolling out onto the surface in your SRV, all without loading times or breaks in gameplay.

Elite Dangerous: Horizons will continue to introduce new features and gameplay as the season continues into 2016, enriching the Elite Dangerous experience with new activities and new ways to play.

Elite Dangerous: Horizons includes all Elite Dangerous content to date, and all players will continue to fly together in the same galaxy. Existing Elite Dangerous players receive a £10 loyalty discount off the price of Elite Dangerous: Horizons, retaining their progress and unlocking the exclusive ‘Cobra Mk IV’ in-game spacecraft.

Order now and be among the first to land, Holiday 2015.

It's almost too good to be true. And so soon. Since I don't believe they can patch in fun so quickly, I'd wager that only a few planets will be accessible at first, or that they will actually be absolutely empty and useless for a long time. The way they make it sound:

"players detect signals, crashed ships, mineral deposits, outposts and fortresses. Alone or with friends players will explore, mine and engage hostile forces as they attempt to infiltrate strongholds guarding valuable rewards. Players will explore new worlds, coasting over mountaintops, diving into canyons, landing on the surface and rolling out onto the surface in your SRV, all without loading times or breaks in gameplay."

seems just what the players want to hear and what can compete with No Man's Sky, but that sounds like a completely new game more than an expansion so I just can't believe it'll work. Or at least not without an additional year of content patches after the Christmas release.


EDIT: Better trailer, and some useless commentary.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 05, 2015, 01:52:22 AM
More directly from Braben. (https://community.elitedangerous.com/node/247)

Quote
We're beginning with airless, rocky worlds – places where a great deal of new gameplay can take place. These are planet-sized sandbox environments, with all sorts of things to discover hidden on them. You'll find surface starports, crashed ships, mineral deposits, hidden bases and more.

 

These worlds are gigantic, and - like the open galaxy - you'll be able to go anywhere. You'll be able to fly over the surface in low orbit and choose your spot to land, you'll be able to venture out in your Surface Recon Vehicle and hurtle across the surface at high speed. You'll be able to sneak around or go in all guns blazing. The nimble SRV is tiny compared to your ship, and is virtually invisible on a long range scanner – ship-based weapons will find it very hard to hold a lock on them, but airborne and ground-based players can explore the same worlds together, so watch the skies!

And all of this in 5 months?

 :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on August 05, 2015, 02:32:41 AM
More directly from Braben. (https://community.elitedangerous.com/node/247)

Quote
We're beginning with airless, rocky worlds – places where a great deal of new gameplay can take place. These are planet-sized sandbox environments, with all sorts of things to discover hidden on them. You'll find surface starports, crashed ships, mineral deposits, hidden bases and more.

 

These worlds are gigantic, and - like the open galaxy - you'll be able to go anywhere. You'll be able to fly over the surface in low orbit and choose your spot to land, you'll be able to venture out in your Surface Recon Vehicle and hurtle across the surface at high speed. You'll be able to sneak around or go in all guns blazing. The nimble SRV is tiny compared to your ship, and is virtually invisible on a long range scanner – ship-based weapons will find it very hard to hold a lock on them, but airborne and ground-based players can explore the same worlds together, so watch the skies!

And all of this in 5 months?

 :awesome_for_real:
(http://metagame.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Mako.jpg) :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 05, 2015, 02:35:54 AM
I'll take it.

(Especially because it's multiplayer, and land and sky can interact, apparently with no loading screens).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on August 05, 2015, 08:33:46 AM
I will believe it when I can play it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 05, 2015, 08:54:50 AM
Today live stream revealed that the transition from space to a planet is not really seamless and without a loading screen. It's like what you get when you go into supercruise or hyperspace, meaning some visual distortion while you are being switched to a different cluster.

They also revealed that "loot" will be introduced at some point soon.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on August 05, 2015, 08:58:24 AM
I like the base game enough that I will probably get this expansion, but I am honestly not 100% sure it's a direction I actually want/care about from my space sim.  I'll give this first expansion a shot and if it doesn't impress I'm probably not going to get any of the future ones.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 05, 2015, 09:14:09 AM
They seem to be expensive, although there's no way to evaluate the actual content at the moment. About 30 - 50 (depending on your currency) for the first one, and they announced a whole SEASON of (paid) expansions. Their Lifetime Pass is now being sold for 130 GBP, and it was about 35 a year ago.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 05, 2015, 11:46:28 AM
So, this is how it's going to be. The first expansion (Horizons) is seen by the Developers as the Second Season of the "Elite Dangerous Show". The First Season is the one that we are playing right now and will end with Patch 1.5. This is important because every expansion marks a "Seasons" and it makes sense to expect a new (paid) expansion every year, which will get free content patches along the way the same we are having now. This isn't that different from any other MMORPG out there actually even though at Frontier they love to come up with confusing new names for everything. Also, I wanted to clarify this because it turns out this Second Season (the Horizons expansion) includes Planetary Landing ONLY on planets without atmosphere so apparently no life and local fauna because that will come in a future Season/Expansion. But here's a picture that should complement the mess I've written.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20seasons%20expansions.jpg)


EDIT: Updated picture.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: DraconianOne on August 07, 2015, 05:39:07 AM
Cobra Mk IV

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLzcxkXWUAAv0nE.jpg:large)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 07, 2015, 05:43:26 AM
One thing that slipped away from previous press reveals is that apparently with the planetary landing expansion will also come some kind of crafting. They didn't say much, but implied that raiding planet surfaces for loot (another new aspect of the game) will play a part into the crafting game.

Are we seeing the anti-Braben faction inside Frontier Developments finally taking over the helm of the game?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on August 07, 2015, 07:55:23 AM
I think it was a mistake for them to try to faithfully recreate the original elite. Mostly because the original elite's design decisions were hamstrung by technology restraints that do not exist today.

I mean shit, who releases a game in 2015 this era without a global, easy to use, chat interface with guild/clan functionality.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on August 07, 2015, 11:42:12 AM
good save, otherwise we could be populating the list all day


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on August 08, 2015, 06:08:42 AM
good save, otherwise we could be populating the list all day
Right after i hit post, I was all like shit, I can come up with a ton of games that didn't do that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on August 14, 2015, 08:02:44 PM
Sadly this is pretty much exactly where I expected this to go, and why I didn't buy the original nor this incarnation. It's an interesting toy, but overpriced, under provisioned with content or game infrastructure, and loaded with waaaay too much baggage having to do with a developer's ego and his obsession with avoiding the piracy which was aggravated by being overpriced in the first place. Although he may have had a point about the piracy the first time around based on the anecdotes related here. But now? Excuse for charging AAA price for an at best incomplete AA game whose development was crowd-funded and which cannot be pirated because it's online only is what exactly?

Sorry. I'm allergic to greed and not interested in subsidizing hubris for a toy that I would only play a few hours and put aside, especially one that is going the route of charging full game price for each new piece of the game that was missing from the original.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Gets on August 16, 2015, 11:44:53 AM
Sadly this is pretty much exactly where I expected this to go, and why I didn't buy the original nor this incarnation. It's an interesting toy, but overpriced, under provisioned with content or game infrastructure, and loaded with waaaay too much baggage having to do with a developer's ego and his obsession with avoiding the piracy which was aggravated by being overpriced in the first place. Although he may have had a point about the piracy the first time around based on the anecdotes related here. But now? Excuse for charging AAA price for an at best incomplete AA game whose development was crowd-funded and which cannot be pirated because it's online only is what exactly?

Sorry. I'm allergic to greed and not interested in subsidizing hubris for a toy that I would only play a few hours and put aside, especially one that is going the route of charging full game price for each new piece of the game that was missing from the original.

Not emptyquoting.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ghambit on August 20, 2015, 08:08:32 PM
More directly from Braben. (https://community.elitedangerous.com/node/247)

Quote
We're beginning with airless, rocky worlds – places where a great deal of new gameplay can take place. These are planet-sized sandbox environments, with all sorts of things to discover hidden on them. You'll find surface starports, crashed ships, mineral deposits, hidden bases and more.

 

These worlds are gigantic, and - like the open galaxy - you'll be able to go anywhere. You'll be able to fly over the surface in low orbit and choose your spot to land, you'll be able to venture out in your Surface Recon Vehicle and hurtle across the surface at high speed. You'll be able to sneak around or go in all guns blazing. The nimble SRV is tiny compared to your ship, and is virtually invisible on a long range scanner – ship-based weapons will find it very hard to hold a lock on them, but airborne and ground-based players can explore the same worlds together, so watch the skies!

And all of this in 5 months?

 :awesome_for_real:

So it's Starflight.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on August 21, 2015, 06:52:02 AM
Awesome, you will be able to explore all of a bunch of boring worlds. I believe so much in procedural content and open worlds, but this is precisely how not to go about it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on August 22, 2015, 04:33:04 AM
Yes, let us enjoy the thrill of exploring the Sahara desert after exploring the Nevada desert. For the price of a full price game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ghambit on August 22, 2015, 12:12:46 PM
Awesome, you will be able to explore all of a bunch of boring worlds. I believe so much in procedural content and open worlds, but this is precisely how not to go about it.


I've always thought you'd need player-generated mission/strat-meta content ala FoM, EVE, WW2O, etc., combined with pre-cu SWG architecting and lore, with perhaps E:D's size and flexibility.

But, games get released, fortunes get made... before all that content will ever make it into a game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on August 24, 2015, 08:01:13 AM
If they keep this up for like three more full price expansions or so they might have the framework for a game


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on September 08, 2015, 03:21:20 PM
They sold 825k paid units. (http://www.investegate.co.uk/frontier-dev-plc/rns/final-results/201509080700233406Y/)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on September 19, 2015, 11:39:29 AM
how much is the new biggest gutamaya ship gonna cost anyway


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on September 25, 2015, 09:05:06 AM
They just announced some more stuff that on top of planetary landing will come in Season 2 (if you buy the expansion).

Specifically:

- The ability launch fighters out of your bigger ship.

Quote
Ship-Launched Fighters can be docked in your ship's hold to give you a far greater range of options to tackle any situation in which you find yourself. Deploy your fighter under AI control or take the stick yourself and fly into battle while your mothership lies in wait.

(https://gallery.mailchimp.com/dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e/images/967f1e58-af10-49e3-9e6c-322f1ef9d422.jpg)



- MULTICREW

Quote
Multi-Crew lets you fly in the same ship with friends, which will up the intensity and camaraderie levels of a joint mission even further! You’ll be able to share and alternate control of weapons systems, turrets and flight duties to multiply your effectiveness. Even to the extent of piloting a ship-launched fighter and working in combination with the mothership. It’ll be especially useful in some of the very large trading ships coming in season two.

(https://gallery.mailchimp.com/dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e/images/10e43ffe-d236-4859-93eb-3da0787dce52.jpg)



- and basically "walking in stations ships".

Quote
The all-new Commander Creator brings your in-game presence to life for the first time, and lets you identify friends with a quick glance across your ship's bridge. Its the first step in the longer term plans we have for you, Commander…

(https://gallery.mailchimp.com/dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e/images/b21c95f0-f93a-4eaf-8006-f26076bf895b.jpg)

(https://gallery.mailchimp.com/dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e/images/a0073709-b713-403d-ae7a-fe914cbeabc4.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on September 25, 2015, 09:45:31 AM
Holy shit. They are actually putting shit in the game that people want. Not saying that stuff will be great, but all the people on the official forums bitching about not getting features they want will have to shut up, even if only until they find other shit to be angry about.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on September 25, 2015, 09:45:51 AM
Fuck a bunch of hair.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on September 26, 2015, 02:05:58 AM
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20hair.jpg)


 :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on September 26, 2015, 02:09:37 AM
You little evil thing  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: SurfD on September 26, 2015, 03:04:55 AM
Tactical....hair.   :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on September 26, 2015, 03:26:04 AM
In case it wasn't obvious, that's not real. It's fan made.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: jakonovski on September 26, 2015, 03:42:24 AM
That's a funny image. Upon closer examination it's an obvious fake. But it took my brain a significant chunk of seconds to process past the "marketing bullshit...marketing bullshit...that's how
shit looks these days...seems legit".



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on September 26, 2015, 03:44:05 AM
True.

I love that in Wasteland 2, when you fire up the game there's a pop up window about buying some Wastelander Boots DLC in the main menu. If you click it, it says "It's a joke! Do you really think we'd do crap like that?"

Point is, yes. We totally think you'd do it. It's nice to see that some wouldn't. Eventually. For now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on September 28, 2015, 01:26:13 PM
i found this planet which is 'valuable' due to the 'ease of mining'

http://i.imgur.com/j1zrf9f.jpg

but i really want to know who is going to try to mine on a planet where it's so hot that the atmosphere is vaporized silicates (with frequent rains of molten glass)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mandella on September 28, 2015, 02:48:37 PM
i found this planet which is 'valuable' due to the 'ease of mining'

http://i.imgur.com/j1zrf9f.jpg

but i really want to know who is going to try to mine on a planet where it's so hot that the atmosphere is vaporized silicates (with frequent rains of molten glass)

Kinda high surface gravity too.

Guess they can use robots to do the work.

Or refugees from Star Citizen....

 :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 06, 2015, 03:56:05 AM
Just patched to 1.4. Known as the PvP patch since it brought this "Arena Commander" module.  :awesome_for_real:

Anyway, patch highlights:

Quote
NEW CONTENT/FEATURES:


- CQC Added! (PvP Arena)
- Imperial Eagle added
- Federal Gunship added
- Federal Assault Ship added
- Hazardous resource extraction sites added
- Compromised nav beacons added
- Legal salvage missions added
- Added Outfitting for CQC
- Changed how powerplant damage is handled - small chance of instant destruction, otherwise malfunctions and halved power output
- Assign Imperial Eagles to those who should have them from their backer rewards


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 09, 2015, 04:06:28 PM
Well well, SCALE (planets). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=553mTYXSGPU)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on October 09, 2015, 07:40:02 PM
Their transition from gas giant shiny reflective rings to actual rocks when passing through (or stopping) is pretty cool too, and was an early indication that they could do that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on October 09, 2015, 08:41:37 PM
Over the course of the next year this is going to have working versions of a great many features that star citizen is promising.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: cironian on October 10, 2015, 01:39:02 AM
And despite that, they will never make anywhere near the boatloads of cash SC gets, since they stick with promises they can actually deliver.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: jakonovski on October 11, 2015, 08:32:49 AM
Well well, SCALE (planets). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=553mTYXSGPU)

That's enough for me to finally buy this game. Games are usually really good at ignoring scale.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on October 11, 2015, 10:38:36 AM
Well well, SCALE (planets). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=553mTYXSGPU)

That's enough for me to finally buy this game. Games are usually really good at ignoring scale.


That is going to be in the horizons expansion.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ghambit on October 12, 2015, 02:56:54 PM
Well well, SCALE (planets). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=553mTYXSGPU)

That's enough for me to finally buy this game. Games are usually really good at ignoring scale.


That is going to be in the horizons expansion.

That's my ticket to get into this game.  I'm sitting here slowly getting my rig updated for the occasion.  Holiday-time.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Engels on October 14, 2015, 02:05:38 PM
I've been playing this quite a bit and I like it. Its a bit dry, but I love the gravity well mechanics for frame shift jumps. They really did a phenomenal job with that. Like when you're approaching a station but its next to a planet your cruise speed goes all cattywampus because of the planet's gravitational pull.

I have been avoiding combat like the plague, however, since the 'tutorial' rapidly disabused me of any notion of me being any good at space pewpew in this game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on October 14, 2015, 04:17:44 PM
I bought the upgrade yesterday as I thought it would let me play the base game. Nope. Unless i pay for rthe base game on top of that I have to wait till Horizon launches. Yay


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 14, 2015, 04:42:54 PM
That's of course stupid on their part. Anyway, if I remember correctly, you pre-ordered the Horizon Expansion which will include the base game. But for some reason, it's like you preordered the Ultimate GOTY Edition of a game... before such edition was released. They don't give you the previous version while you wait. I am not justifying them, clearly they are doing something wrong and advertising it poorly, but the good news is that when Horizon releases you WILL have the base game included.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Engels on October 14, 2015, 09:09:37 PM
You do have to wonder at the mentality of it all. I mean, you just put down more money than if you'd buy just the base game, ya?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on October 14, 2015, 11:19:52 PM
Yeah. The base game is €37.49 right now, the Horizons thing I bought was £49.99. So I think they are trying to get me and others to pay the extra for a couple of months play on the base game. Which is fucking stupid because all it does is piss me off and it's reducing the chances of me buying more shit from them down the line and of playing the game when it finally comes out.

At least I'll be able to play around Christmas...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Engels on October 15, 2015, 07:19:44 AM
Or as these things go, Christmas of 2020.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 15, 2015, 07:25:50 AM
On that front, Frontier Developments has been unbelievable for today's standards in their ability to get stuff delivered very closely to the original promises. For some reason they keep saying "this Holidays" instead of Christmas, so while I wouldn't be surprised if it slipped by a week or two, it would be a first if it dragged beyond January 2016.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 21, 2015, 03:03:48 PM
Long stream showing off the planetary gameplay. I marked this point in the video for you where the SRV calls for the ship to pick it up. It's at 1:04:20 if direct linking doesn't work. Pretty cool.

https://youtu.be/b3jlcPe8cII?t=3859


All it's missing is the part where you drive it yourself into the ship bay, get out of the SRV and walk back to your pilot seat.

Oh, wait...  :why_so_serious:

Point is, I would love to see that, but don't delay my game for some silly transitions that you can always, eventually, add later.

EDIT: Another cool part is when it goes around the Cobra at 11:40


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 23, 2015, 10:15:52 AM
20 seconds of "Combined arms". Attacking an outpost while you drive the buggy, and your friend pilots the spacecraft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaV3FP5HJ48


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 06, 2015, 09:06:06 AM
This blows my mind. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jE7UhIyRnAl) A quick video that redefines the concept of "zoom".


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Engels on November 06, 2015, 09:32:29 AM
As shoddy as so much of this game is, the one thing they do amazingly well is the planetary physics and 'realistic' proportions. I love ducking out of supercruise into an asteroid belt around a gas giant.

By the way, have they said if all planets/planetoids will be landable, or only those that are small enough to permit realistic escape velocity? Because if there's one thing this game tries to do well is gravity.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 06, 2015, 10:07:25 AM
All the planets... that don't have an atmosphere.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on November 06, 2015, 11:04:24 AM
All the planets... that don't have an atmosphere.
I don't have the list but initially only a small portion of non-atmosphere types will be landable. The different types that are landable will expand over time with atmospheric being the last to be landable.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Engels on November 06, 2015, 01:11:41 PM
That makes a lot of sense to me. I do wish they'd bother to do some polishing of the GUI. And give the collector/prospector drones a bit of love. I mean, the universe has mastered interstellar space travel, but heaven forbid a collector drone pick up a bit of ore you target. That means instant annihilation!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on November 15, 2015, 01:03:00 PM
jesus those two new superheavy ships are certainly something


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 15, 2015, 03:21:13 PM
jesus those two new superheavy ships are certainly something

Behold the Imperial one, from below. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmrkDO9iFyw)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on November 15, 2015, 05:54:40 PM
That ship has heating dispersal coils that pop out of the back like raised hackles when you heat up. It has exterior vanity lighting that turns red when you deploy your weapons. It can carry almost 800 tons of cargo and still be loaded for combat. It hauls ass in the speed department. It is a riveting paean to imperial vanity.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 19, 2015, 01:06:07 AM
Fan-made commercial for the Imperial Courier. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU5kZqukWGQ)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on November 19, 2015, 02:38:23 AM
Lol. I'm actually flying a courier at the moment and its a lot of fun. That made me giggle.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 20, 2015, 06:40:52 AM
Viper commercial from the same guy. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH6OB7TmQkw)

"Professional pilots in controlled environment. Do not attempt."  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Shannow on November 25, 2015, 07:45:05 PM
Picked this up on steam sale. Did they purposely design the UI to piss off new players as much as possible?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on November 25, 2015, 07:50:04 PM
I actually don't find the UI to be a problem.  I mean there are things about this game that are a bit annoying, but the UI actually feels like one of the things I like.  What are you having trouble with?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on November 25, 2015, 11:06:38 PM
Should I pick this up on steam sale or will the Horizons be such an improvement that I should wait for that?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 25, 2015, 11:32:04 PM
You will want Horizons, no doubt. Getting this now, no matter the discount, is probably gonna be wasted money as Horizons will launch in a month and it will include the base game. But you should check one thing: they said there was a discount when buying Horizons if you had the base game. If the discount is pretty much the same price of the game now, then it could be worth it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on November 26, 2015, 03:18:57 PM
That ship has heating dispersal coils that pop out of the back like raised hackles when you heat up. It has exterior vanity lighting that turns red when you deploy your weapons. It can carry almost 800 tons of cargo and still be loaded for combat. It hauls ass in the speed department. It is a riveting paean to imperial vanity.

that ship turns out to maneuver like a type 9 and is utterly not viable for combat against even ships that cost half as much ahahaaa oh god it's so painful to fly


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on November 26, 2015, 03:33:42 PM
that ship turns out to maneuver like a type 9 and is utterly not viable for combat against even ships that cost half as much ahahaaa oh god it's so painful to fly
Have you flown it yourself or are you just going from forum posts. I loaded the 1.5 beta and found it to be a nice experience.  However, I did not expect a ship larger than an Anaconda to be a spartan dog fighting machine.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Shannow on November 26, 2015, 07:02:41 PM
The new player experience is ..um...interesting. Btw what is the flight model meant to be? Seems to fall between physics based to space opera fantasy and just settle for annoying?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on November 26, 2015, 07:48:59 PM
that ship turns out to maneuver like a type 9 and is utterly not viable for combat against even ships that cost half as much ahahaaa oh god it's so painful to fly
Have you flown it yourself or are you just going from forum posts. I loaded the 1.5 beta and found it to be a nice experience.  However, I did not expect a ship larger than an Anaconda to be a spartan dog fighting machine.

yeah i putzed around in it for a while and the thing is such a dog, unfortunately. an anaconda fit for half the price will beat it to death handily.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 26, 2015, 11:33:25 PM
The new player experience is ..um...interesting. Btw what is the flight model meant to be? Seems to fall between physics based to space opera fantasy and just settle for annoying?

Not sure what control scheme and device you are using, but remember that a few tweaks from the Settings can totally change (read:improve) the flight experience. Personally, I find it pretty good and what separated it from the crappiness of the Star Citizen one.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Shannow on November 27, 2015, 04:39:38 AM
The new player experience is ..um...interesting. Btw what is the flight model meant to be? Seems to fall between physics based to space opera fantasy and just settle for annoying?

Not sure what control scheme and device you are using, but remember that a few tweaks from the Settings can totally change (read:improve) the flight experience. Personally, I find it pretty good and what separated it from the crappiness of the Star Citizen one.

Again a problem with the UI, just finding what keys matched what controls in the options menu was a pain. This might very well be a good game but too much pain for me. Steam refund granted.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 27, 2015, 05:20:00 AM
Four Examples of Excellent Interface Design. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/11/24/best-interface-design/)

Scroll down to number 4   :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on November 27, 2015, 05:42:12 AM
I'm finally getting a bit more involved in the game, and one thing I feel it's missing is a commander log/journal that you can customize, with various entry types (although there are a couple tools/mods out there that do just that). You are in command of your ship, but you are also part of a Power, and an inhabitant of the galaxy, no matter how meaningless in the vast scale of the universe (but important in the context of a videogame, yes).

Your Commander isn't characterized by particular skills or traits, just a reputation meter and his/her relationship with the "law".  So I feel that you can't really get attached to it as it is, especially in a sandbox game that encourage its playerbase to create their own stories & hubs.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 27, 2015, 05:57:39 AM
I agree one million percent with you. What sucks is that the log/journal was planned from the beginning, it was in the earliest design documents, and it's such a shame that it got canned (at least so far). The upcoming character creation tool (face and body) will help a little but I doubt it will be enough. I would much more prefer faces for the NPCs like in Elite 2 than for my character. For myself, I'd just like to be able to track my own history and decisions somehow.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on November 28, 2015, 06:36:31 PM
Four Examples of Excellent Interface Design. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/11/24/best-interface-design/)

Scroll down to number 4   :why_so_serious:

The only problem i have ever had with the E:D ship interface is that sometimes elements of it become hard to see when you are fighting close to a orange or yellow star. But, all the same, I suppose that's a bit blinding anyway.

Past that the universal interface is so helpful overall that i prefer it to anything I see in any other ship interface made by anyone else.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: murdoc on November 29, 2015, 11:25:25 AM
You will want Horizons, no doubt. Getting this now, no matter the discount, is probably gonna be wasted money as Horizons will launch in a month and it will include the base game. But you should check one thing: they said there was a discount when buying Horizons if you had the base game. If the discount is pretty much the same price of the game now, then it could be worth it.

Checked the website and it says this:

Quote
Elite Dangerous: Horizons includes all Elite Dangerous content to date, and all players will continue to fly together in the same galaxy. Existing Elite Dangerous players receive a £10 loyalty discount off the price of Elite Dangerous: Horizons, retaining their progress and unlocking the exclusive ‘Cobra Mk IV’ in-game spacecraft.

I keep hovering over the purchase button on Steam but haven't yet. I think this is a game I would love once I get the control scheme figured out, even with all of its issues.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: slog on November 29, 2015, 04:05:56 PM
Is this worth 15 bucks if I don't have a joystick?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on November 29, 2015, 04:39:36 PM
Is this worth 15 bucks if I don't have a joystick?
Many people will likely tell you yes. However, my personal opinion is no.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on November 29, 2015, 04:49:11 PM
Is this worth 15 bucks if I don't have a joystick?

The joystick doesn't add much. It's cool, but it's easier to dogfight with mouse & keyboard than with a joystick. At 15 bucks, cmon, it's a steal. Even though what you are buying for 15$ is gonna become "half game" in a month due to the new expansion being sold separately.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: slog on November 29, 2015, 05:08:29 PM
Is this worth 15 bucks if I don't have a joystick?

The joystick doesn't add much. It's cool, but it's easier to dogfight with mouse & keyboard than with a joystick. At 15 bucks, cmon, it's a steal. Even though what you are buying for 15$ is gonna become "half game" in a month due to the new expansion being sold separately.

Is the expansion a stand alone?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Malakili on November 29, 2015, 05:10:10 PM
It's not standalone, everyone will still be able to play together regardless.  But if you buy the expansion you're getting everything, including the base game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on November 29, 2015, 08:24:08 PM
Is this worth 15 bucks if I don't have a joystick?

I tinkered with the control scheme and input decays until I had an extremely efficient and precise mouse and keyboard system. It's so ruthlessly accurate in combat that I can't go back.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on November 30, 2015, 05:29:57 PM
While I have and can make reasonable criticisms regarding Elite, Star Citizen can suck on this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsnjzWv57sw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsnjzWv57sw)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 02, 2015, 02:09:20 PM
Behold the ship tree. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRpcM5SyOxc)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: HaemishM on December 03, 2015, 08:13:32 AM
While I have and can make reasonable criticisms regarding Elite, Star Citizen can suck on this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsnjzWv57sw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsnjzWv57sw)

That's no moon... oh wait, yes it is.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 09, 2015, 04:12:51 PM
Horizons launches in three days. Official date is December 15th, which once again is astonishingly coherent with that they promised, and here's the new trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX_E6jCGusM


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on December 09, 2015, 06:08:50 PM
Horizons launches in three days. Official date is December 15th, which once again is astonishingly coherent with that they promised, and here's the new trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX_E6jCGusM
I checked out the Horizons beta, the actual game play is nothing near as exciting as what is represented in that trailer. It is still pretty cool though, although some types of players might get bored of it extremely fast.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 09, 2015, 11:43:59 PM
the actual game play is nothing near as exciting as what is represented in that trailer.

<broken record>
That should be the by-line for the entire game.
</broken record>


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 10, 2015, 12:19:35 AM
I tend to agree. But the same could be said, say, for Minecraft. So it's all about what rocks someone's boat. Mine is definitely not too rocked yet by the options offered by Elite: Dangerous but what they have is pretty unique nonetheless. As someone else said it now desperately needs depth not breadth, and here's hoping that the upcoming alien PvE threat will bring some of it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: jakonovski on December 13, 2015, 04:57:28 AM
Looking at all them videos, I'll definitely be getting this when the planetary thing hits. Should be the podcast game of the next year or so.

And thanks to whoever it was that warned me on the ripoff sale they had.

edit: here's a very fortright one, enough to sell me nonetheless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf1mE2MNF5Q


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Rendakor on December 13, 2015, 06:55:48 AM
Is this always online, or is there a single player option? The whole thing sounds cool but getting blown up by some random goons does not.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on December 13, 2015, 06:59:04 AM
Is this always online, or is there a single player option? The whole thing sounds cool but getting blown up by some random goons does not.
It is always online. However there are three modes.  Open mode, which lets you randomly be connected peer to peer with all of the random nuts in the galaxy. Group mode, which lets you connect peer to peer with groups that you have joined. Solo mode, which is just you while interacting online with the galaxy and its background simulation.

So if you want to play single player, you choose solo mode.  However, I have had good fun with the Mobius group. There is like 10k players in the Mobius group, and they have a no pvp policy, meaning they kick gankers out of the group. I have never been randomly attacked by anybody in the Mobius group.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Rendakor on December 13, 2015, 07:40:32 AM
Ahh, cool. Maybe I'll pick it up when the expansion drops.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 13, 2015, 07:46:46 AM
It drops Tuesday, by the way. But obviously, the more you wait, the less bugs you are gonna face and the more content you are gonna get all at once as the Expansion really gets you more stuff through the course of the year. Specifically Multicrew, ship-launched fighters and (bald) character creation.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on December 13, 2015, 09:51:27 AM
Ahh, cool. Maybe I'll pick it up when the expansion drops.
Just in case you are interested in more info on Mobius, a link to their website (https://elitepve.com/).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 14, 2015, 02:40:20 PM
Crazy. And all community made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRbpkdWv0vM


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: jakonovski on December 15, 2015, 01:17:21 PM
It's out, anyone played it yet? Is it on fire?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 15, 2015, 01:52:05 PM
can you still get the black friday paintjobs


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 15, 2015, 02:07:58 PM
I don't know, but

(http://i.imgur.com/3dgQOj9.png)


EDIT: I have to say. The first landing on a planet is a mystical experience. Once again the sound department is a huge part of it. Unbelievable. Once you touch down, there's that "ok, now what?" feeling which is the everpresent problem with Elite Dangerous, but WOW if this isn't the closest thing ever to be a real astronaut.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 03, 2016, 04:33:57 PM
Played a few hours of Horizons and remembered why I stopped playing a year ago.

I was just flying the starting sidewinder between Eranin and Dahan to haul low value cargo between those systems. Got interdicted every third passage. Barely escaped most of the time. The necessary repairs eating up all of my meager profits in the process. Didn't escape one time and the resulting kill wiped out about six to seven hours of progress. Which in my case was a bank balance of less than 2000 credits.

Restarted my save. Same thing happened the second time around.

Not exactly my kind of fun to keep getting griefed by the game and  player ships in what is essentially the ED starting area.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on January 03, 2016, 04:55:10 PM
Played a few hours of Horizons and remembered why I stopped playing a year ago.

I was just flying the starting sidewinder between Eranin and Dahan to haul low value cargo between those systems. Got interdicted every third passage. Barely escaped most of the time. The necessary repairs eating up all of my meager profits in the process. Didn't escape one time and the resulting kill wiped out about six to seven hours of progress. Which in my case was a bank balance of less than 2000 credits.

Restarted my save. Same thing happened the second time around.

Not exactly my kind of fun to keep getting griefed by the game and  player ships in what is essentially the ED starting area.
Nobody is going to argue over the fact that there are depth problems to the game. However, you were definitely doing it wrong. In a few hours you can easily be in an upgraded Cobra doing what ever you feel like in the game, with the exception of high payout assassination missions.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 03, 2016, 05:40:40 PM
Then please tell me how I can earn the 1,000,000+ credits needed for a tricked out Cobra in "a few hours" when I can't even leave Bakers Prospect without being interdicted and shot down. Because this is what happened the third time I had to restart due to being killed. Selected the free sidewinder, took off from the default starting location, got interdicted and destroyed by a much more capable ship. Time from restart to death: less than ten minutes.

Less than eight hours in and I already had to do three free sidewinder restarts and I haven't even ventured from the starting location or done anything dangerous.

Can't see myself doing this over and over again if I need to be able to afford a Cobra or similarly capable ship just to not get fucked with.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on January 03, 2016, 05:57:05 PM
First if you are buying cheap materials to haul from A to B, stop it. It is not worth your time at that stage of the game. Second, interdictions are avoidable, Pay attention to your radar, don't let ships settle in behind you in super cruise. If you do get interdicted then win the mini-game by staying in the blue. If you cant win the mini game, power down to submit. Throttling down to submit to the interdiction means a faster frameshift drive cooldown. When you get pulled out of super cruise, 4 pips to eng, 2 pips to system. Keep boosting while the frameshift drive is charging.

Go through and customize your controls, if you haven't already. Play the training missions, if you haven't already. Play in solo until you get a feel for the game, if you aren't already. The frequency with which you get interdicted is ridiculous. I can stack no scan smuggling missions and get interdicted less than what you are claiming.

I am seriously not picking on you, no sarcasm. However, based on other game related discussions you have participated in over the years leads me to believe that Elite might not ever deliver on the type of experience  that you are looking for. Which while disappointing, is still okay. There are other space games on the horizon... :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Montague on January 03, 2016, 09:20:14 PM
Then please tell me how I can earn the 1,000,000+ credits needed for a tricked out Cobra in "a few hours" when I can't even leave Bakers Prospect without being interdicted and shot down. Because this is what happened the third time I had to restart due to being killed. Selected the free sidewinder, took off from the default starting location, got interdicted and destroyed by a much more capable ship. Time from restart to death: less than ten minutes.

Less than eight hours in and I already had to do three free sidewinder restarts and I haven't even ventured from the starting location or done anything dangerous.

Can't see myself doing this over and over again if I need to be able to afford a Cobra or similarly capable ship just to not get fucked with.

Here's what I did:

First of all, play solo to start. Go to Kremainn with NO CARGO. Even if you get interdicted by an NPC if you dont have any cargo they'll just leave. Head towards the ringed planets and on your Navigation contacts you'll see Resource Extraction Sites. Go to a [Low] rated one. When you drop out of supercruise, fly around and look around for contacts to target. When you find some that are wanted, follow them around and wait for the local law enforcement to blast them into dust. As the bad guys go down, put a few laser shots into them when they're low on hull, get free money. The pirates will scan you but provided you have no cargo, they will not attack you unless you attack first, and if they're under heavy fire they'll ignore you. You can get around 15-20,000 credits for they typical Cobra or Viper. The key is being patient: if you attack too soon you'll draw aggro and in a Sidey you're dead. Also be careful not to attack the pirates before they've been scanned (WANTED appears on their targeting info), and don't friendly fire the police. Once you have a good number of claims, head over to a station in the system and cash them in to the local security contact. You'll want to be cautious at the beginning because if you get killed, you lose all your bounty claims.  At a Low RES I could get around 100,000 credits in about a half-hour or so, depending on spawns. Once you upgrade out of the Sidewinder start trying out Medium RES for more spawns and cash.

  


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 03, 2016, 09:27:40 PM
I never play the stupid interdiction minigame. If you are interdicted. throttle down immediately to submit. You will drop out of cruise but your FSD will be back up  almost immediately and you will take no damage. Boost away from the prick and cruise when ready. Easy peasy, no repairing needed. Have your power in shields and engines, no weapon power needed. Power into shields makes your shield more resistant to damage, engines brings up your boost faster. If you want to be fancy use a chaff launcher as well

Its a fuckload easier and less stressful than the interdiction minigame, and only takes away 10 seconds of your life.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: jakonovski on January 06, 2016, 09:37:31 AM
I started futzing around with this. Was attracted to the surface portion, but it seems really unfinished to the point of many missions being apparently unfinishable. And really, no binoculars exist in this universe?

Spaceflight is great though, and I think I'll try Montague's tip on finding targets to shoot.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 06, 2016, 11:53:09 PM
I spent hours last night driving the SRV around planetary surfaces for missions. The sound design is awesome in that game. As are the visuals. It was oddly calming driving around a lifeless planet with nothing but the sounds of the ground radar keeping me company.

Jahonovski, the missions can be finished the mission targets are just not that easy to find.

First check that you are on the right planet, mission descriptions are sometimes confusingly written. Then take off and climb to above 2 km so that your radar can pick up the blue areas of interest. Land at one of them. Be careful because the SRV will exit your ship facing the other side and you might end up driving the wrong way.

Mining deposits ping only on the lower third of the radar scanner, artificial installations ping on the upper third or on the whole scanner. The mission targets usually only show up as weak signals though at first and so you might end up not noticing them above all of the mineral deposits that usually are stronger signals.

Dismiss your ship, so that it doesn't give you a false positive then look for weak signals occupying the upper parts of the scanner. At worst they'll look like radar glitches except they always show up at roughly the same point. Usually you can make out weak lines though. Don't just go by vision, listen to the noise the ground radar makes, after a few tries you can make out different radar contacts by sound.

I usually had to drive for several km (a few minutes) to get to a mission site while in a blue zone and the mineral deposit signals are usually stronger.

You might find one or more artificial sites in a zone. A few times you won't find the one you look for I the first zone you look, but you usually get it by the second one.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: jakonovski on January 07, 2016, 12:01:14 AM
The one ground target I did find was a prison, but I couldn't pinpoint the target generator because of the restricted zone. Hence the need for binoculars.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 07, 2016, 10:47:07 AM
Yeah that also angered me. The best option is probably to bind "next target"/"previous target" to keys or controller buttons. The default bindings only give you "closest target in front" for the SRV. Which usually won't select containers or similar stuff when sentry drones are present.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 07, 2016, 10:56:50 AM
Thanks for the suggestions by the way.

I only do missions now and so seldom fly with actual cargo and I only got interdicted once while flying without cargo. I still get regularly interdicted when I actually carry cargo though. Sir T's suggestion of throttling down and running away was pretty helpful though, I've never managed to win the interdiction minigame anyway. With maximum power directed to engines this works pretty well.

GIven that NPC interdictors are usually Cobras though it's still sometimes a close call. The last intercept ended with the FSD kicking in at 10% hull integrity. The Sidewinder is fast but the Class 2 power plant and Shield generator don't give you much protection and NPCs quickly eat through my shields even when I'm trying to dodge.

I've since upgraded to a MK III Cobra. A nice ship but sometimes Frontier's weird need for realism gets aggravating. In E:D the Cobra is a two seater ship and so your seating position and viewport is on the left side of the cockpit where the pilot seat would be. Which is realistic but also makes the ship harder to steer since your whole viewport is not centered but off to the left.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 07, 2016, 09:56:56 PM
That was the dealbreaker for me with the Cobra. Its a nice ship but the offcenter placement of the view was maddning.

By the way, you should always upgrade your power distriputer first. It increases the amount in the capacitors and increases their recharge. Makes the ship far more flyable.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 08, 2016, 08:29:49 AM
One day I'm going to drop the hammer on this game.  One Day.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: murdoc on January 08, 2016, 10:15:42 AM
One day I'm going to drop the hammer on this game.  One Day.


This is almost word for word what I keep thinking.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Rendakor on January 09, 2016, 07:08:24 AM
Same here; I was about to pull the trigger but the new expansion puts it out of my price range.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on January 09, 2016, 07:27:07 AM
The expansion includes the base game if I remember correctly.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: jakonovski on January 09, 2016, 09:30:26 AM
Hell yeah, I got some lucky courier missions that synergized and now I can buy a new ship (or soon anyway). I'm thinking there's two things I want to do: exploring and space trucking. What should I get?



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 09, 2016, 10:42:03 AM
Depends on how much money you have.

Best Choice: Asp Explorer
Best Budget Choice: Cobra MK III.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 09, 2016, 02:14:16 PM
If you want to do cargo runs you will have to look at a freighter eventually, and the most fun one is the T6m, that can be retrofitted to a decent exploration vessel of you load it with fuel. It is the only Frieghter class that can dock at outposts as its a medium class vessel. The other freighters cant, and it is far more maneuverable than it's big brothers.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Type-6_Transporter

Another vessel to consider is the Diamondback Explorer, which is like an asp on a budget and can handle small to medium loads with a large jump range for space trucking. While the Asp is a decent ship, I do like the Diamondback E. It does have some power problems when outfitting it for combat, but I found a dual Pulse laser and Cannon setup worked quite well.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Diamondback_Explorer


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Rendakor on January 10, 2016, 04:19:03 PM
The expansion includes the base game if I remember correctly.
Right but it's $60, not $15 or whatever the base was last steam sale. I'm more curious about the space sim genre than an actual fan, so I don't want to spend a whole lot on something that might not jive with me.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on January 10, 2016, 05:06:09 PM
I understand completely, I played Elite way back when, and this is a game I enjoy quite a bit. So for me it is a graphically updated faithful remake of the original, which for some is not enough. However, for me it is alright. If they grow it beyond what it is for me is just icing on the cake.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 10, 2016, 11:54:25 PM
If Elite meant something for you in the 80s and growing up, this video is really nice.

David Braben and the making of the original Elite. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys2aSQBvzjk) This is from a wonderful documentary called "From Bedrooms to Billions", which narrates the history of British game development since the very early days only through the words of the protagonists. A must. EDIT: Peter Molyneux is the only one in the whole three hours that comes across as extremely annoying. Maybe I'm biased. Also Matthew Smith? Wow, heroin is a hell of a drug :/


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 11, 2016, 01:58:42 AM
I've now switched from the Cobra MK III to a Viper MK IV.

Although the Cobra might be the better alrounder I could never quite get around the fact that the seating position is off center and for what I do (mainly transport and surface missions with a little bit of combat/need to defend myself) the Viper fits my bill exactly.

Decent range (20 ly. with an A rated FSD) enough power to drive all the systems even after I upgraded the Shields from Level 3 to Level 4 and decent cargo capacity (16 for my spec) for missions makes it a good choice for me, at least until I can afford an ASP or similar type.

Insurance will be a factor in the future though. After a few upgrades the Viper is already at about 100,000 Credits for an insurance rebuy.

Second time around the game has really hooked me.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 11, 2016, 02:02:59 AM
Interdictions are no longer a problem but they are really all over the place. I played the whole day on thursday during my holidays and got interdicted once (in probably about fifty to sixty jumps), Yesterday I had about ten interdictions ina four hour period. While flying in the same general area of space.

With the tecniques I'Ve learned and thanks to the ship I'm in they are more an annoyance than anything else but I'm curious how the game decides those spawns. It's doubly strange because I almost never have any sort of cargo. The NPC spawns trigger the in game dialogue for pirates that are after your cargo though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 14, 2016, 12:51:17 AM
Missions into unexplored systems you can't buy exploration data for suck.

With the basic discovery scanners abysmal range it takes a long time to find your destination. Also the missions still show even when you don't own a scanner.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 15, 2016, 12:31:18 AM
Life is finally being injected in Elite Dangerous!

Notes about the next big patch (ETA: late March). We'll get NPCs with a name, face, history and personality.

Quote
Characterisation and a more personal connection to the game world has always been one of the goals for Elite: Dangerous. It’s such a massive play space that it’s easy to feel dwarfed by it and the current impersonal contacts inside the game only enhance that perception. In an interesting coincidence I saw some lovely concept that fans had created for personalities and as part of the mission flow. This is something that we’re working on as part of the 2.1 release (as with the 2.0x point releases some of the changes will be applicable to season one owners).

We’ll leverage the work we’ve done on that Commander Creator) to provide headshots of specific contacts. The focus for this will be mission givers and mechanics (these are loot characters) and the intention is that every mission giver in game (also equivalent to the minor factions) will be a specific individual. This should be consistent for all players.

Your relationship with the minor faction will determine who within that organisation you will deal with, so the better your relationship with them, the higher level character you will deal with. So maintaining a decent reputation with that minor faction is a wise policy!

As well as providing a face for your interactions with that minor faction they will offer more information about how the minor faction is doing and how you can help them. This will be accompanied by a number of changes to missions to facilitate this, there will be more details on this over the coming weeks.

Mechanics are individuals with their own characteristics, history and specialisations who will facilitate crafting. They are spread throughout human space and they are the people to see about implementing changes to your weapons and modules. The release of season two saw the first steps in loot and crafting and this will developed to a much greater degree in 2.1 -  we’ll delve into more details on this soon as well.

In the meantime, after a long treasure hunt that you could say started months ago with the super mysterious "Unknown Artifact", aliens have been found. Or at least traces of them.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20Barnacles%201452786500-screenshot-0739.jpg)

Obviously the search isn't really over until a live one will be found and contact will be made.


EDIT: Adequate RPS article on aliens. (https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/01/15/elite-dangerous-aliens-barnacles/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rockpapershotgun%2Fsteam+%28Rock%2C+Paper%2C+Shotgun%3A+Steam+RSS%29)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 15, 2016, 03:02:26 AM
This game is somehow making me reconsider my decision to not buy a new computer.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 15, 2016, 04:45:10 AM
Especially because it seems to work wonderfully with the Vive  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: jakonovski on January 15, 2016, 06:37:52 AM
Looks like I need to play some more again, nothing like a little sense of mystery in a space game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 15, 2016, 09:44:59 AM
More on the topic from the official newsletter

Quote
People have been searching for 'barnacles' ever since they caught a glimpse of something strange in the Elite Dangerous: Horizons launch trailer. Although no evidence has been corroborated, suspicions are high that these discoveries are related to the Unknown Artefacts (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=142106) that many Commanders have been analyzing for a while now.

For those interested to join the massive explorer party that's happening in the Merope system, you can find the barnacles on MEROPE 5 C at the following coordinates: -026.3496° -156.4044°. Meanwhile the search for more barnacles in the area continues, and the scientific Commanders in the community are puzzling over the strange sounds emitting from these unusual objects. What could they possibly mean?


and a video that explain(ed) the situation up to a couple of days before the discovery.

The Barnacle Hunt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnN7J2__-Zc)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 18, 2016, 01:51:32 AM
I bought an Asp Explorer yesterday. It's a very nice ship. Nice seating position and great handling. Handles better than my Viper MK IV. Which is strange since the MK IV is a heavy fighter and should in theory handle much better than a medium sized trading/exploration vessel.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 19, 2016, 06:21:33 AM
I made the mistake of browsing the official Elite angerous forums. Didn't change my view on support forums one bit. The same cesspoool of self-entitled players demanding features that "must" be added or "must" be removed. The same sort of people claiming that this "will be the end" of Elite etc.

One difference though. I've never seen a community - even during Everquest or UO days - where the player killers and gankers actually demanded that the developer reprimands or bans players that don't want to engage in one-sided "PvP" (the kind where a significantly better equipped or more experienced player kills easy prey for shits and giggles) or outright demanded that the dev removes or changes game features to make it harder for other players to escape from or evade that one-sided PvP.

There are threads where people demand that players who hard disconnect during a player interdiction should be shadowbanned and the pirates should be reimbursed by Frontier for the ingame loot they lost because of that.

Apart from that it's generally the same schtick I've heard so many times in all PvP debates since time immemorial. If the game allows it it is a legitimate game mechanic, if you don't like PvP play in private groups or local. It#s a game about space so space pirates should be able to exist...

The problem seems to be so severe - at least in the mind of the forumites - that there exists a de facto PvE server. People have founded a large private group called moebius where only PvE is allowed. A fact the PKers use as another argument to justify why PKing should be allowed in open play - if you don't like it join the moebius group.

The PvP vs. PvE debate has always been passionate and ridiculous at times but I've never seen it held like in Elte.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on January 19, 2016, 08:06:33 AM
As you say, the general arguments extend back to early UO and before. What's really interesting to me is when a certain kind of PK'er defends one-sided conflict as "realistic"--in space, there should be space pirates, in fantasy kingdoms there should be bandits, etc.

Without requiring all the other kinds of "realism" that should surround that. In a situation where there is allegedly some kind of 'government' or 'state', why isn't everyone a bandit? Because if you get caught engaging in banditry the cost is your life (forever), your maiming (forever), or imprisonment (a long time). Meaning the realistic 'risk/reward' that accompanies banditry, piracy, etc. is largely absent from MMOs that enable PvP.

Equally, valuable resources and the routes to them are rarely left undefended by those governments or states to unorganized or petty banditry. Bandits either exist in waste spaces where they catch the few, unwary travellers or they band together in sufficient numbers that they effectively become a government or state in their own right (and then typically attack or punish competing bandits in their own territory of control). In MMOs in contrast, the risk/reward relationship is typically "gamified" by placing the most valuable resources in the least controlled and most dangerous regions.

The only time banditry or something like it becomes commonplace "realistically" is in Hobbsean situations of total social breakdown--where typically "realism" would also include a scarcity of food and supplies, a lack of places to sell stolen goods, etc. And of course these are not anybody's idea of "fun", including PKers--they want a world where you can always refuel, always get value back for what you've stolen, always carry on with 'normal play', etc.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 19, 2016, 08:52:12 AM
If MMOs modelled society - or at least society's reaction to outlaws and bandiry - I'd be less negative about "PvP" in MMOs.

During the heyday of piracy trade fleets had military escort ships (hence the armada) and pirates got hanged or their ships got sunk with all hands on board. Piracy might be a glorified profession nowadays given all of the swashbuckler movies but piracy was only a profitable profession for a very short while (a few decades) given how long the colonial powers used sea trading routes. Colonial military powers employed whole "raiding parties" tasked with looking for and destroying hideouts. Pirates couldn't dock at legitimate sea ports (making access to resources and food that much harder) and were generally deemed kill on sight (with no repercussions). With the invention of the nautical chronometer (and thus trading fleets no longer needing to rely on fixed routes) piracy as a business was essentially over. The number of crime lords that die peacefully in their sleep at a ripe old age is not that high even in cases where crime does pay. If law enforcement doesn't get you, one of your competitors does. Compared to the real world consequences Pking or other antisocial behaviour in games is relatively risk free.

In case of Elite the killed party might lose days, weeks or in some cases months (deep space exploration data) of in game progression. The insurance rebuy for an Anaconda can go up as high as 100,000,000 credits and you might lose cargo or data you can't replace. The only trepercussion the pirate faces is a low bounty.

The general defense is that "people who don't want to get killed should not play or play in 'local' mode". Which would ultimately lead to a game where only the PKers play in open. It's interesting to see that there are still developers out there who somehow haven't learned from 20 years of MMO history and refinement and still claim that antisocial behaviour is somehow "working as intended" simply because the game mechanic allows it.

The only consolation with Elite is that Space is big. Really, vastly, hugely, mindboggingly big. And so the chances of you being repeatedly ganked by one person are low.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 19, 2016, 08:57:54 AM
A thought I had while re-reading your comment, Khaldun is that PKers and other types of people can only exist in MMOs because all MMOs are essentially anarchies. Anarchies where money doesn't matter and death has no consequence.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on January 19, 2016, 09:36:51 AM
Right. The most unrealistic anarchy one could possibly imagine. No wonder there is a small class of people who spend too much time online who believe that a certain kind of libertarian utopia would be so wonderful. They think it'll be just like being a space pirate in an unrestricted MMO world--able to take what you want when you want it and do whatever you wish to and yet always be able to buy food in the supermarket and gas in the gas station, because of the magic of the marketplace or something like that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 19, 2016, 11:02:26 AM
Another example is the consequences for Smuggling. Rather than having your ship impounded and you seeing the inside of an agoniser booth for a bit, you just get a small fine that doesn't even dent your profits.

Hell I had a bounty for a bit and I basically ignored it and flew in and out of the station with little problems.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 20, 2016, 01:14:07 AM
Louis CK - If murder was legal. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQUr2RkjykU)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on January 20, 2016, 03:28:56 PM
I made the mistake of browsing the official Elite angerous forums. Didn't change my view on support forums one bit. The same cesspoool of self-entitled players demanding features that "must" be added or "must" be removed. The same sort of people claiming that this "will be the end" of Elite etc.

One difference though. I've never seen a community - even during Everquest or UO days - where the player killers and gankers actually demanded that the developer reprimands or bans players that don't want to engage in one-sided "PvP" (the kind where a significantly better equipped or more experienced player kills easy prey for shits and giggles) or outright demanded that the dev removes or changes game features to make it harder for other players to escape from or evade that one-sided PvP.

There are threads where people demand that players who hard disconnect during a player interdiction should be shadowbanned and the pirates should be reimbursed by Frontier for the ingame loot they lost because of that.

Apart from that it's generally the same schtick I've heard so many times in all PvP debates since time immemorial. If the game allows it it is a legitimate game mechanic, if you don't like PvP play in private groups or local. It#s a game about space so space pirates should be able to exist...

The problem seems to be so severe - at least in the mind of the forumites - that there exists a de facto PvE server. People have founded a large private group called moebius where only PvE is allowed. A fact the PKers use as another argument to justify why PKing should be allowed in open play - if you don't like it join the moebius group.

The PvP vs. PvE debate has always been passionate and ridiculous at times but I've never seen it held like in Elte.

um, might I direct your attention to that other space game, named Eve?  The DEVELOPERS there are at least as batshit crazy principled on insisting that PvP not be avoidable and that gankers generally have the upper hand and minimal consequences.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on January 20, 2016, 08:10:52 PM
Yes. Which is why EVE is both awesome (that someone did it) and not particularly a great model for everyone else.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 21, 2016, 01:49:55 AM
um, might I direct your attention to that other space game, named Eve?  The DEVELOPERS there are at least as batshit crazy principled on insisting that PvP not be avoidable and that gankers generally have the upper hand and minimal consequences.

I'd disagree. Eve is much better at balancing outlaw activity. Try holding up vessels in 0.0 systems and see what happens. Eve also deals better with career pirates. Once your rating is low enough you'll get attacked by security in systems of increasingly lower rating (up to 1.0) and once you're below a -4.5 rating basically anyone can kill you on sight without repercussions. Operating in 0.0 Systems is really risky for pirates and operating in low security systems is really rsiky for traders. As it should be. Brave the pacific ocean near Sumatra and you might get boarded by pirates but it would require the most daring or foolhardy pirate to hold up vessels in the English channel. Eve also has better in-game and social mechanics for you to get armed escorts for valuable cargo or for your corporation to help out.

Eve is basically a game where I'd agree that PvP is a fact of life since the game actually punishes sociopathic behaviour by integrating it into the core game. Both by making it possible for wretched hives of scum and villainy to exist and consequentially making it harder for pirates to operate outside of lawless space. Also in how the social aspects of the game are structured so that you actually could do something to "eradicate the pirate plague" by hiring escorts or bounty hunters to smoke out the little pirate hidey-hole. In Elite though a pirate with a criminal record from here to pluto can still pretty much do everything in Elite's equivalent of 0.0 space and land at every base even with security forces present. Worse if I shoot at a pirate without scanning him first I will get the bounty on my head.

That's like Osama BIn Laden living at Central Park West New York and US law enforcement not caring at all.

Elite is a really bad environment for the kind of PvP EvE does because there's basically no risk involved for gankers and law-abiding players have basically no means to defend themselves (or gang up on) players that engage in piracy or outright space murder. Dying on the other hand is as costly in Elite as it is in EvE. A fully tricked out Asp will set you back 55 million credits and that is a middle of the road ship. That's days or weeks of in game progress for most players. In Eve I could make life really miserable for the guy that just blew up my ship - given enough funds and/or connections. In Elite I can do jack shit. All he gets is a small bounty on his head. I can't offer in-game bounties, I don't even have the means to track that guy down.

"Give me the head of Xxx_NewbGanker52_xxX and I will pay you all of the money" is something I could do in Eve but not in Elite. Therefore I sympathize more with the PvE crowd tha I do with the PvP guys.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 21, 2016, 01:55:55 AM
I just realized that I have the ratings for Eve security completely backwards. I apologize but my point should be valid either way.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 21, 2016, 07:54:47 AM
To be honest Jeff, you are kind of showing bad examples with Eve

The reason you dont see gatecamps in 0.0 so much is that the population is low and people stick to the big moneymaning hubs rather than the crap space rather than travel about. However I used Gatecamp all the time AND the entrances to 0.0 are all camped to shit 24/7. The reason that the big powers don't bother chasing off the pirates from those etrances is that if you form a fleet to kick them off the camps alt scouts will see them coming and the camp will log off. So all the "police" will get is blueballs. I mean they are not getting paid so they sit there watching indys fly off for huge profits with no profits to themselves and then they get bored and bugger off, and the pirates simply log back in and giggle. And frankly there are corps out there that live to just roam around in small gangs continuously popping members of whatever big alliances that they don't like. You might think they are only hitting bots ratting or whatever, but that's what they do and the game frakly makes it very easy. Hell they even have shops that can move them around without needing gates and with no visible cynos.

And there was actually huge fleets to protect industrial tried several times in eve. The problem is that no matter what you do Pirates can pop indys like nothing, and no amount of logistics ships can save them from huge burst damage.

Low sec might as well be 0.0 for all the protection gate guns give, as gate guns are easy to tank. I've been killed landing on a gate by smartbombing battleships. And Alts make low sec rating a minor inconvenience at worst. As for your bounty, well thank you for giving the guy a million or so so his alt or corp mate can shoot him and pocket your money.

Frankly Eve is a very pirate friendly environment and people take huge advantage.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mandella on January 21, 2016, 10:15:24 AM
Yeah I'm not reading anything that wasn't already beaten to death back in the UO days, especially PK rage over hard disconnects during battle.

Thing is, even as I have become more and more carebear as I get older, I don't expect all games to cater to me. If I am playing a PK friendly game, I expect to get player killed. Over and over again. And if I don't like it, doesn't Elite have some sort of single player option anyway?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on January 21, 2016, 06:37:00 PM
That's like Osama BIn Laden living at Central Park West New York and US law enforcement not caring at all.

They don't believe in ghosts, so...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 22, 2016, 12:37:51 AM
More on the upcoming Engineers.

Quote
Engineers are individuals who provide the blueprints (which describe the materials and items needed for a specific modification) and can then apply them to the weapon or module. They are characters with their own back story, preferences and specialisations. Initially we’re looking at around 30 engineers dotted throughout human space and we will be able to add more in future updates.

One of the reasons that we chose mission givers and engineers first for the characterisation treatment is because in both cases you have an ongoing relationship which can change over time with the character. For the minor factions this is measured by your reputation with that minor faction (although factors like Pilots Federation rank will influence the deference with which they treat you), with the engineers the measure is taken from a variety of stats throughout the game and dependent on the nature of the individual.

For example we have an engineer who is closely aligned with the Federal Navy and so your rank with the navy is his key consideration, so the higher your naval rank the better blueprints he will be able to offer. As well as naval ranks, the Pilots Federation ranks (including combat, trade, exploration and CQC) will influence some engineers. Some engineers will be affiliated  with minor factions, so you’ll need to manage your relationship with them as well. Some will use your stats for mining or trading in illegal goods as well as a host of other indicators.

As well as these initial governing factor there is a separate reputation with them, which must be cultivated along the lines of their governing factor to gain their trust and so more capable blueprints.

Not all engineers are immediately available to all players. The factor that governs their relationship with a commander has a minimum threshold that must be reached for them to deal with the player.

Each engineer has a specialisation, meaning that the deal with specific weapon types and modules. This is because they are experts in squeezing a bit more performance than the norm in their particular field. We are looking at having a secondary specialisation for engineers, just to help balancing the distribution of specialisations and of course we can add more engineers in the future. Or even remove ones if circumstances require it!

The engineers are spread geographically to add more geography to the map, but also to fit with the individual’s characteristics. They tend to be reclusive characters who are found at their own, isolated facilities on planet surfaces.

Seems like another rep grind to me (  :awesome_for_real: ) but this time with a little more personality. One could argue that everything in any MMORPG is technically a rep or an xp grind or both.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on January 22, 2016, 04:10:59 AM
I think with demands for PK-friendliness the thing that is just eye-rolling--as it was back in early UO--is the perception of dedicated PKers that a "realistic" game setting requires "realistically" allowing pirates the ability to repeatedly kill and rob other players with impunity because somehow that's the way the setting would "really" be.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 22, 2016, 05:31:55 AM
Tried mining for a bit.

It's lucrative, if you can stand the boredom of pointing mining lasers at stationary targets for an hour until the cargo hold is full. I don't think beats stalking resource extraction sites for bounties as far as credits/h go but the amount of precious metals you get from pristine rings is nothing to sneeze at.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 22, 2016, 09:35:24 AM
I like mining I have to admit. Like mining in other games its a nice thing to do when you are listening to a podcast or something. Plus I find the action of the collector drones to be oddly hypnotic.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 28, 2016, 12:51:16 AM
Alien noises? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhrHaxQrEkQ) Some say you can hear these noises all the times, but what are they?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 28, 2016, 09:08:04 PM
Alien noises? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhrHaxQrEkQ) Some say you can hear these noises all the times, but what are they?

Trumbles? (http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Trumble)

edit: More here, lower down in the article. (http://www.drewwagar.com/progress-report/the-trouble-with-trumbles/) Just my theory though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Baldrake on February 01, 2016, 08:07:57 AM
I just picked this game up (after having passed up the half price sale in December). It's making me feel old. There's way too much configuration choice for my limited brain. And I'm hitting a learning curve from never having played a 3D flight sim before.

My real question for now is, I'm struggling with how to set up my Xbox 360 controller. I really don't want to futz with this kind of stuff, at least not yet - I just want to play the game. If anyone has a favourite config, are you willing to point me at it?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on February 01, 2016, 10:50:59 AM
I would skip the x box controller and just go keyboard and mouse if you don't have a joystick. You'll have to interact a ton with the keyboard still, even if you set up a x box controller.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sky on February 01, 2016, 11:12:42 AM
I get that they want to cater to the joystick crowd. However, that doesn't interfere with also catering to the 360 controller crowd (and widening the appeal of the game substantially).

I don't even bother with most of these games that can't be easily set up on a controller and get me right into gameplay, add complexity as it goes. I admit I'm too old for that shit these days, I don't have days to sit around learning how to control a game anymore.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Baldrake on February 01, 2016, 01:36:00 PM
Thanks - Sky, that makes be feel better.

I figured out that the key is to use the profile that turns off yaw, and then you can map the right stick to something more useful. Booya.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on February 05, 2016, 10:28:16 AM
The plan/calendar of the other big updates coming this year as part of Season 2.

2.1 – The Engineers
Coming Spring 2016
Everything changes. Introducing an expanded mission system and game-changing loot. Craft exotic weapons and modules for your spacecraft and build a ship unlike any other.

2.2 – Guardians
Coming Summer 2016
Take what comes and strike back with double. Bring a second ship to every combat encounter with Ship-Launched Fighters and defend your passengers against the deadliest threats in the galaxy.

2.3 – The Commanders
Coming Fall 2016
Team up and stand together. Forge your own identity with the new Commander Creator, then share your bridge with Multi-Crew and fly with friends.
 
2.4 – ????
A secret to be revealed in Elite Dangerous: Horizons’ final expansion!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Venkman on February 20, 2016, 08:59:34 PM
Just picked up the Elite Arena $7.50-ish thing on Steam.

Pretty fun, though only DM, TDM and CTF modes.

I had been avoiding Elite until I have time to go all full-VR on it. But the lower-cost bet paid off. Also, I can not believe how much value I've gotten out of my MS Sidewinder flight stick. This thing is as old as my very first PC back in '99, complete with the special serial-to-usb adapter. For you youngin's, we're talking hardware that goes abck to the Freespace 2 era, back when that was a thing, before it went so free it became open-source.

Windows 10 recognized it no problem, and it only took some setting fiddling to get it just right for Arena.

I totally suck. I'm all of a decade+ out of practice. But it's real nice to have a combat space sim out there even if I've only got time for the occasional arena version.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on February 26, 2016, 11:30:40 AM
Sneek Peek of the upcoming patch which introduces some more humans in the coldness of Elite space.

This in an engineer NPC, Todd Blaster something. They are named, unique, react to your reputation and will do things for you if you qualify.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/Elite%20engineers.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on April 19, 2016, 11:05:44 AM
so much stuff is supposed to be happening and yet nothing is happening

this game's becoming even more of a ghost town by its already impressively ghosty standards


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 22, 2016, 12:32:06 PM
Space Traffic Control coming. Worth noting that the voice refers to you and your ship dynamically using the first three letters of your name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFsJ7e2oDuc&feature=youtu.be

Also, here is a screen of the new Mission page. Human faces everywhere.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20mission%20faces.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 22, 2016, 02:52:07 PM
Space makes everyone mopey and sad.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Surlyboi on April 22, 2016, 07:48:25 PM
In space, no one can hear you, "meh".


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 23, 2016, 02:50:26 AM
I'm sorry, but adding faeces faces tot he mission page adds nothing to the in game experience. Hell it can arguably detract from it.

And I bet they still havent fixed the godawful buying modules interface which is what pissed me off so much I largely quit playing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 23, 2016, 04:09:04 PM
Well this is certainly not the core of the coming expansion, just a couple of welcome additions meant to tackle one of the issues of Elite Dangerous, which is the lack of "life". Faces for missions are actually not only a good thing, but they are faithful to the Frontier (Elite 2) legacy, so it's about time.

Also, I totally understand the "meh". Clearly, Elite Dangerous is more popular than many would have predicted is scratching a lot of itches for a lot of people. It is also absolutely boring to some others and while they keep adding stuff, chances are that the direction they went with will just never click with some players.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 23, 2016, 05:52:39 PM
Well yeah. As a "space trucking" game its fantastic. People want it to be "Space battles opera - the game" and it just isn't that. But its great at what it does.

And yeah I was serious about the ship upgrade interface. It was always a bloody chore to use.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 03, 2016, 03:39:18 PM
Approach to one of the new Engineer bases, and first examples of crafting. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSfdQ4wWQIw&feature=em-uploademail)
Interesting to notice that not only the Engineers offer unique new weapons with unique effects, including stuff that prevents enemies from warping away (!), but they allow you to create weapons with unique and customized values using some sliders. Easier to take a look for yourself.

Another planetary base. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mENb5jLeKWg)






Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on May 26, 2016, 05:15:51 AM
Elite 2.1 ("The Engineers" update) launches later today: servers are currently down, and should remain so for the next 5-6 hours. There is currently a YT livestream going on (Braben on camera as I write this) and should run 'til the server go live:

https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=aYHJY9JZNBA

Patch notes (scroll down a bit) :
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=253924


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on May 26, 2016, 12:38:26 PM
....Aaaand it's live!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 27, 2016, 07:04:01 AM
Trailer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIYxuoYDtes&feature=em-uploademail)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on July 04, 2016, 02:19:39 PM
how do i make the most money these days


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on July 04, 2016, 06:11:38 PM
how do i make the most money these days
Bounty hunting in a combat ship, while pledged to a power with a bonus, while in that power's territory.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on July 08, 2016, 01:18:49 PM
is that really more money per hour these days than hauling/courier missions?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on July 08, 2016, 03:04:23 PM
is that really more money per hour these days than hauling/courier missions?
They nerfed the shit out of stacking those types of missions. So it is my opinion, based on attempting to use both styles, that bounty hunting with appropriate powerplay bonuses is the fastest way. Again that is only if you have a top tier combat ship, FDL or better with good upgrades. You also have to be capable of handling the upgrade AI.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on July 08, 2016, 04:49:48 PM
Have they changed weapons significantly?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on July 08, 2016, 05:51:48 PM
Have they changed weapons significantly?

If you grind up engineer mods the weapons can get a bit ridiculous. However, the weapons are mostly the same. Even though I play regularly, I feel like Frontier is doing a shit job of taking advantage of the game's potential. Every fucking change they make increases the grind and monotony.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on July 15, 2016, 11:04:59 AM
(http://i.imgur.com/D5GmTi5.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on July 17, 2016, 10:17:28 AM
Its time to build a wall to keep the Aliens out.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on July 17, 2016, 05:34:10 PM
Honestly? As a non-player at the moment? That feels really generic. It does not make me want to come back to see what it's all about, not unless there's some interesting twists.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on July 17, 2016, 08:47:03 PM
it makes me want to be they're copyeditor. theirs really no excuse at this point.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on July 18, 2016, 04:13:03 AM
:awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: rattran on July 18, 2016, 07:56:22 AM
it makes me want to be they're copyeditor. theirs really no excuse at this point.
Damn you, there's coffee in my keyboard now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on July 19, 2016, 07:48:13 AM
The sad thing is that I was typing a post to correct his grammar when my brain kicked in, for once, and said "hang on..."   :hello_thar:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on August 09, 2016, 12:20:06 PM
I just started playing this again, so add me to your friends list if you are active.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 05, 2016, 06:30:25 PM
I'm back on this game, to finish my many years of grinding to the ultimate goal: an imperial cutter.

Which I will then engineer to insane lengths.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 06, 2016, 03:40:19 AM
Show us a picture of it, young man.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 06, 2016, 04:02:42 PM
Show us a picture of it, young man.


well here's a picture of a midnight matte black Clipper that I have filled with all the necessary equipment to travel the galaxy and hunt down the rarest materials for Engineers in style

http://i.imgur.com/BAJl4hL.jpg


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on December 06, 2016, 08:59:46 PM
Want. And want time to do this too.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 07, 2016, 07:33:14 AM
Show us a picture of it, young man.


well here's a picture of a midnight matte black Clipper that I have filled with all the necessary equipment to travel the galaxy and hunt down the rarest materials for Engineers in style

http://i.imgur.com/BAJl4hL.jpg

I like it a lot.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mandella on December 07, 2016, 12:34:57 PM
Show us a picture of it, young man.


well here's a picture of a midnight matte black Clipper that I have filled with all the necessary equipment to travel the galaxy and hunt down the rarest materials for Engineers in style

http://i.imgur.com/BAJl4hL.jpg

Damn. That's not a flying crate. Not at all.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Brolan on December 07, 2016, 01:20:50 PM
Was think of getting into this but the comments give me pause.  It sounds like they are going to nerf combat and the cool engineering effects while simultaneously not doing the updates they promised the last year.  Comments?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on December 07, 2016, 02:07:11 PM
The game is beautiful, grindy, and shallow. If you need to be directed, stay away. If you can create a story in your head, and can enjoy that, then play it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 07, 2016, 05:32:50 PM
It's actually not shallow anymore; it's obtuse. Engineers successfully broke the game out of the issue of credits being a linear monoprogression, but everything you have to do with regards to the engineers is opaque.

That means that the game is cruel and unfun when you don't know what to do, because the tools to know what to do are not in the game.

But if you can play the exterior metagame of 'getting good info on what to do' then the game becomes pretty cool. The grind is real, and every little upgrade to your ship is paid for in blood and hours, but it feels so worth it.

For starters, here is an essential starter guide to engineering, worth its weight in printer ink:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14F5pbks7dpEOGaVlhE8b-i2hJg2ufj31wuaMq8Ro-iw/edit#heading=h.p94y9x82nlid

if you are wondering how to get anything done at all in this game PLEASE ASK, I try to find this stuff out right down to the exact planet you would want to go to (for arsenic, for example). that way it ends up more like a singleplayer campaign, just by building your own rails.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 11, 2016, 12:06:38 AM
i got the goddamned cutter, after all this time

the requisite vanity image dump is forthcoming. i just take longer than average to try to come up with better looking pictures of my space brick


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 11, 2016, 06:11:26 AM
Fuck it.  I think it's time to buy this.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 11, 2016, 06:27:56 AM

imperial shipbuilding logic
"It must be supremely capable."
"yes sir, here you go"
"It must also be luxurious — nay, decadent!"
"well, ok. sure thing. you're the boss."
"I want it to be huge."
"ok sir, it's huge"
"But now it is slow."
"yes, uh, well, sir that is what happens when you make something this big"
"Unacceptable!"
"well i mean, physics doesn't let you ..."
"Put more engines on it until it is fast."
"but uh that will make it bigger"
"Then put even more engines on it."
"well uh"
"More. Until it is fast."
"ok welp it's fast now. it's fast and it costs a motherfucking billion dollars, asshole"
"Magnificent. Magnificent."

(http://i.imgur.com/lRX1W0b.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/3En6l84.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/CRA7YzG.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/qcZFdw4.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/KSDULDT.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/PNG75aC.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/PbUIfJF.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 11, 2016, 08:43:13 AM
Awesome shots.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hoax on December 11, 2016, 09:32:56 AM
Did they ever patch any player interaction into this game? What I remember most was it sounding like it was basically single player.

Also only one huge hardpoint? Lame Sam.  :drill:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: apocrypha on December 11, 2016, 09:34:11 AM
That is glorious. Not glorious enough to make me want to play again though.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 12, 2016, 07:07:18 PM
Also only one huge hardpoint? Lame Sam.  :drill:

I'll honestly take the cutter's loadout (1H, 2L, 4M) over the corvette's (2H, 1L, 2M, 2S). Especially given that the Cutter's huge hardpoint is dead center at the very nose of the ship, compared to the corvette's weird side-by-side 'elevator' loadout that lifts over the aft end of the ship. It will give the Corvette a slight benefit in heavy-ship-busting power over the Cutter, but it had that already with the grade 8 distro.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on December 16, 2016, 07:15:31 PM
I just picked this up:  it's true, there's absolutely no instruction in game.

I did a few days of courier missions to build up enough credits to get a Hauler.  Then, I used a trade route calculator to find a 2000 credit/ton route that was only 1 jump apart, and did runs until I could afford an Eagle with mostly C modules and weapons.  Then, I switched to farming RES sites for bounties in Kremanin, where I could jump back and forth from the High RES sites and a station to collect bounties.

I recently upgraded to a Viper MK4, and have upgraded to mostly B and C modules.  I switched systems to Abrocmii, because the system has stations where you can find 4C,B, and A modules (Kremanin didn't sell these).  Right now I'm still farming High RES sites and playing whack-a-mole with Asp's and Vultures and getting 30K-200K per bounty - although I just logged off after getting zapped by an ASP and loosing 700K in bounties.  :x

Is there more to optimize this?  It's going to be quite a grind to get up to A across the board, to speak nothing of upgrading to a better ship.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on December 17, 2016, 05:08:12 AM
I just picked this up:  it's true, there's absolutely no instruction in game.

I did a few days of courier missions to build up enough credits to get a Hauler.  Then, I used a trade route calculator to find a 2000 credit/ton route that was only 1 jump apart, and did runs until I could afford an Eagle with mostly C modules and weapons.  Then, I switched to farming RES sites for bounties in Kremanin, where I could jump back and forth from the High RES sites and a station to collect bounties.

I recently upgraded to a Viper MK4, and have upgraded to mostly B and C modules.  I switched systems to Abrocmii, because the system has stations where you can find 4C,B, and A modules (Kremanin didn't sell these).  Right now I'm still farming High RES sites and playing whack-a-mole with Asp's and Vultures and getting 30K-200K per bounty - although I just logged off after getting zapped by an ASP and loosing 700K in bounties.  :x

Is there more to optimize this?  It's going to be quite a grind to get up to A across the board, to speak nothing of upgrading to a better ship.
I was telling the truth when I gave my opinion up thread a bit.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 18, 2016, 09:26:39 AM
I just picked this up:  it's true, there's absolutely no instruction in game.

I did a few days of courier missions to build up enough credits to get a Hauler.  Then, I used a trade route calculator to find a 2000 credit/ton route that was only 1 jump apart, and did runs until I could afford an Eagle with mostly C modules and weapons.  Then, I switched to farming RES sites for bounties in Kremanin, where I could jump back and forth from the High RES sites and a station to collect bounties.

I recently upgraded to a Viper MK4, and have upgraded to mostly B and C modules.  I switched systems to Abrocmii, because the system has stations where you can find 4C,B, and A modules (Kremanin didn't sell these).  Right now I'm still farming High RES sites and playing whack-a-mole with Asp's and Vultures and getting 30K-200K per bounty - although I just logged off after getting zapped by an ASP and loosing 700K in bounties.  :x

Is there more to optimize this?  It's going to be quite a grind to get up to A across the board, to speak nothing of upgrading to a better ship.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 18, 2016, 05:02:20 PM
I would suggest moving on from the Viper Mk V, and the question now is in what direction you would want to progress. If you want the Imp Courier, you'd want to start sourcing Empire space missions now. Prior to that, though, your next good move is probably a Cobra Mk III.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on December 18, 2016, 06:39:13 PM
I would suggest moving on from the Viper Mk V, and the question now is in what direction you would want to progress. If you want the Imp Courier, you'd want to start sourcing Empire space missions now. Prior to that, though, your next good move is probably a Cobra Mk III.

Thanks Sam.  I'm enjoying the bounty hunter side of things and focusing on combat.  I hadn't given much thought to which faction to align with.  Also, what is a good ship progression for that role?  Cobra MK3 to Viper to ???


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 19, 2016, 03:20:17 PM
You are doing what I did, more or less, but I was stuck in a Viper mk III for quite a sizable duration. You have a better step available to you with regard to RES bounty hunting ships.

If you want to do the empire ranks, you'll get a speedy little beast called the Courier which will keep you ahead of the curve for a long time and which is legitimately fun to fly and has a decent amount of internal space for its size/combat capacity. The Courier is your reward for sticking it out with Empire ranking. You can get a Courier off the ground with just over 3 million total assets (d-rated everything + 3A shields) and then slowly upgrade it to a total A-grade at 5.7 million dollars. I ran mine with a beam laser and two autocannons. Three pulse lasers works too if you like to hang out at the RES's for a long time. It has very strong shields for its size and it's zoomy.

Your eventual goal is the Vulture. Once you have 9 to 10 million credits in total assets, you can sell off the courier and get yourself this beast at a basic d-graded level with ok shields and enough of a reserve to rest on if you blow up on occasion. The vulture is tanky, supremely maneuverable, and has two LARGE hardpoints. you'll enjoy flying this one a lot. It's the RES murderbeast.

If you are not getting the Courier, you probably want to start with your Cobra mk III now. The Cobra is your default 'does pretty much everything' ship and can be kitted out with everything it needs for 7 million, and you probably won't really ever want to get rid of it until you start being able to afford things like the Asp Explorer. Anything you're doing that isn't bounty hunting? It will be your go-to ship for (this includes doing the Engineers). If you have the Cobra, don't sell it off to get the Vulture, just junk its component parts down to D or E grade except FSD and distro, and keep it around for speedy travel across the galaxy.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 19, 2016, 03:25:32 PM
Your Vulture, by the by, can be continually improved up to about 24 million dollars worth of kit. An A-Graded vulture is your first ship that flies with the big boys.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 25, 2016, 11:21:31 AM
This is about as transparent as a brick wall.

A learning curve that will require a team of Sherpa.  Alternatively, help me out !


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 25, 2016, 01:32:18 PM
ok! let's check this off as we go

step zero: if you are using mouse and keyboard i will set you up with the most golden mouse & keyboard setup there is. let me know and i'll write up a walkthrough on the perfect setup for space gallivantary.

step one: learn to take off and land in large stations. don't worry about anything else yet, just practice flying in and out of stations. you're in a sidewinder! it's the easiest time to make mistakes and accidentally boost and pinball around dry-humping station interiors is now. your ship is garbage, your life is inconsequential, so now is the time to make mistakes

step two: learn to take off and land on planetary platforms, and how to get Planetary Glide to engage every time (i usually do this by making sure that I go in at about a 45 degree angle to the ground, nice and slow, when i'm approaching in supercruise.

step three: i hope we learned some basics about supercruise in the tutorials


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on December 25, 2016, 01:44:12 PM
An alternative to the Viper is the Diamondback Scout or Explorer. I went for the explorer myself, but both are good ships and have a great jump range. The Explorer has a great hardpoint setup as well.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Diamondback_Explorer


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 25, 2016, 02:12:09 PM
yeah it looks like the diamondbacks are the best and most appropriate stepping stones before the Vulture. Didn't have that, so it was vipers all the live long day for me at an RES.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 25, 2016, 03:35:15 PM
ok! let's check this off as we go

step zero: if you are using mouse and keyboard i will set you up with the most golden mouse & keyboard setup there is. let me know and i'll write up a walkthrough on the perfect setup for space gallivantary.

step one: learn to take off and land in large stations. don't worry about anything else yet, just practice flying in and out of stations. you're in a sidewinder! it's the easiest time to make mistakes and accidentally boost and pinball around dry-humping station interiors is now. your ship is garbage, your life is inconsequential, so now is the time to make mistakes

step two: learn to take off and land on planetary platforms, and how to get Planetary Glide to engage every time (i usually do this by making sure that I go in at about a 45 degree angle to the ground, nice and slow, when i'm approaching in supercruise.

step three: i hope we learned some basics about supercruise in the tutorials

Awesome, thanks.  I also got Dishonored and Borderlands and, by God, for old games they're easy to get into and monster fun.  But I really, really would appreciate a keyboard setup for tomorrow !



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 25, 2016, 07:06:33 PM
You are about to experience what the game really shines at, which is a rock solid spaceflight training sim. Getting your spaceflight skills up using this game is really satisfying, because suddenly you're thinking in all sorts of dimensions you're not used to. The goal here is to first to get familiar with PITCH, YAW, and ROLL. Later on, we introduce LATERAL and VERTICAL thrust, but right now that's just confusing, holy shit. So, to start, pitch, yaw, roll. This picture describes them perfectly.

(http://machinedesign.com/site-files/machinedesign.com/files/uploads/2014/06/PRY.gif)

here's the most important part: copy the mouse controls like this exactly.

(http://i.imgur.com/rt9FDl6.png)

ROLL: Left and right is now your rolling, and that the roll 'decays' back to neutral without constant input, by setting the x-axis relative mouse to "on" otherwise you just roll all over the place and it's terrible.

So as long as you are pulling the mouse in one horizontal direction, you will roll correspondent to the pulling, but once you stop pulling, your ship stops rolling and levels out. Without this leveling out stuff, your ship spins around at the slightest provocation and you're wrestling against it constantly. So x-axis relative mouse definitely on.

PITCH: Secondly, your y-axis is set up so that it controls the rate of pitching based on how much you pull up or down. To keep you from exhausting your mouse hand trying to maintain high-pitch battles (.. huh, i wonder if that's what that originally meant) your pitch does not decay because your y-axis relative mouse is "off."

Last and certainly least is YAW.

(http://i.imgur.com/RJNcYel.png)

Keep yaw into roll off. Yaw is yaw, roll is roll. Q and E will be your yaw buttons and you will use them with your left hand while also using that grouping of keys for lateral and vertical thrust. You will quickly discover why Yaw is not as important as rolling and pitching, because yaw is always very slow. But you want to always use yaw when trying to keep adjusted onto targets.

WASD will become vertical and lateral thrust, like so:

(http://i.imgur.com/Q0rDlbI.png)

on this keypad, W and S, normally 'forward' and 'backward' are now your vertical thrusters. They turn on all of the maneuvering thrusters on the bottom or top of your craft, respectively, causing you to fly straight up or straight down. A and D are your lateral thrusters, which cause you to strafe directly from side to side.

Take it easy with these for now. They will later get factored into all of your maneuvering but for starters get comfortable with rolling and pitching.

here's the part that your brain will probably wrestle with the most initially: THRUST, aka that whole thing with the engines on the back of your ship that make you go forward.

(http://i.imgur.com/HvsG6t9.png)

Your mouse wheel will trigger 25% increments of thrust, forward or backward. If you want, find a key not used here as your emergency 'stop' button and set it as 'set speed to 0'

also while you are here find out what your computer set for "jettison all cargo" and delete this keybind entirely. Just to save you the pain now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 25, 2016, 11:46:28 PM
i guess i got a full chrome cutter skin for the holidays.

http://i.imgur.com/nXMTqrq.jpg


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 26, 2016, 03:03:13 AM
Well, that takes a bit of getting used to but, by Christ, it makes docking so much easier.  Cheers.

Now to conquer the galaxy.  Anyone got 160 Billion credits they can loan me ?   :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 26, 2016, 04:04:18 AM
Right, that was fun.  First wee mission complete and I took a couple of tons of cargo just on the offchance it would be worth shit and it turns out it was profitable to the tune of 522 credits, so I'm a happy bunny.

One small snag was I couldn't slow down.  Turns out my supercruise key wasn't mapped.  Which is odd and definitely NOT MY FAULT, but hey ho.

So little information to actually go on to play.  It's really, really bad that....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 26, 2016, 11:29:23 AM
When your supercruise goes in 25% increments, the easiest approach method is to wait until the countdown to approach hits 6 seconds, then switch from 100% to 75% supercruise thrust.

Data courier runs are probably best until you have an opportunity to get out of your Sidewinder. If you have horizons, keep practicing those planetary approaches and landings. Getting used to gravity now is for the best.

Your next step will be the Eagle.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on December 26, 2016, 06:58:02 PM
I forget where it is, but on the map set your jumps from "economical" to the other setting. You will use more fuel but you will do far less jumps as it wont be set to do annoyingly short jumps when you are travelling.

I cant really help on control as I always used a joystick.

Fuck, I'm going to log into this thing and have to actually learn how to land on a planet, aren't i? Gaaaagghhh...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 27, 2016, 01:24:26 PM
Fuck, I'm going to log into this thing and have to actually learn how to land on a planet, aren't i? Gaaaagghhh...

start with low mass ships. lot of people were cruising on into planets in their giant deathboats and being oh so surprised when, for some reason, tiny fuselage maneuvering thrusters were not counteracting the descent rate of a thousand tons of equipment. you know, physics or whatever. Just best to understand that before you're 2km from the surface with a 300m/s descent


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Quinton on December 27, 2016, 02:03:15 PM
Finally giving this a look and my first attempt at combat training was a hilarious epic failure...
I bought a fancy Saitec X52 HOTAS controller setup because this seemed like the thing to do...
After locking on to the training target I push the throttle ahead to full...
Knocking over the glass of water on my desk in front of it...
Dousing the desk, some papers, a handful of biodegradable packing peanuts that start dissolving immediately...
And generally making a godawful mess.


Speaking of "physics or whatnot" is there a sane way of matching rotation with a rotating station?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on December 27, 2016, 02:06:00 PM
Not really, other than manually rolling with it. There is an autodocker that you can buy


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 27, 2016, 03:03:28 PM
How do I find places to shoot up assholes ?

I'm currently in Dahan, for reasons I won't go into, and I'm trying to find resource areas or places to shoot shit.

How does one find them ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on December 27, 2016, 03:09:00 PM
If you go near a planet with rings, they will show up on the contact list.

There is also contacts that appear as you are travelling in space (the name of which I cant remember, sorry) that are either low or high intensity. Low might have one or 2 pirates, high will have a convoy. Avoid those for now. You can find them by moving slowly between planets.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Quinton on December 27, 2016, 05:34:06 PM
Okay, what the hell am I doing that's pissing off traffic control as I exit rotating stations?
I picked up a 400CR fine and I don't understand what I'm doing wrong.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on December 27, 2016, 05:36:16 PM
Okay, what the hell am I doing that's pissing off traffic control as I exit rotating stations?
I picked up a 400CR fine and I don't understand what I'm doing wrong.

Speeding and bumping a ship, or possibly loitering in the zone of another pad.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Quinton on December 27, 2016, 05:48:32 PM
Ah maybe I'm speeding.

The first time I tried to land traffic control started shouting at me for blocking the docking window, so I've been trying to get clear of it ASAP...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on December 27, 2016, 06:05:08 PM
Check if you have illegal goods on board, or something that is illegal in the station. And yes, picking up stuff in the darkness of space makes it stolen goods.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 27, 2016, 06:06:23 PM
- SHOOTING ASSHOLES: assholes gather most notoriously in"Resource Extraction Sites" or RES's. These are always in planetary rings. The assholes warp in, inspect people's cargo holds, and get into fights with space cops.

Since you are hunting low-grade space assholes, you need to warp around and find ringed planets with "Low Intensity" RES's, and in systems with actual space cops. NEVER HAVE ANYTHING IN YOUR CARGO HOLD. Once you find a low-intensity RES, scoot around and watch the space assholes pick fights with space miners and trigger fights with space cops. Once space cops are murdering the space assholes, lurk around behind them and shoot the space assholes a few times as the space assholes are dying. As long as you get some shots in at the end, you are considered the glorious golden hero who 100% was responsible for the end of that space asshole, and are rewarded appropriately.

Scoot around until you have a decent chunk of change in your bounty claim list that is large enough that you would be really sad to lose it, then go take it to a station to refuel, repair, re-arm, and cash in your bounties.

If you want to be earning empire/federation rank while doing this, shoot space assholes in the appropriate territory. You get rank credit for handing in bounties on space assholes.



- NOT GETTING FINES: speed always under 100m/s when docking. Above is considered being reckless and you are responsible for ensuing damage to non-speeding ships.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 27, 2016, 06:12:24 PM
if it helps, I did most of my space asshole hunting in the system HIP 16607. One of the gas giants has what used to be the holy grail of space asshole hunting and space rock farming alike: a metallic ring with pristine resources. Before RES's were differentiated into Low Intensity, normal, High Intensity, and Hazardous, you would go there for the highest chance to roll pirate anaconda farms.

Additionally, THOME GATEWAY is a high tech station with pretty much everything the young adventurer needs, so you don't have to leave to keep upgrading.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Quinton on December 27, 2016, 06:14:40 PM
Check if you have illegal goods on board, or something that is illegal in the station. And yes, picking up stuff in the darkness of space makes it stolen goods.

I expect I was speeding.  I'm still getting used to extracting information from the relatively tiny HUD display.

Definitely wasn't ferrying illegal goods (just doing some data fedex starter missions and once carting 4 tons of liquor (legal!) to another station as well).

Working on getting used to systems and procedures.

Is there any way to figure out what remote systems/stations have for trade besides using a third party website or traveling there and checking the market in person?

My understanding is if my starter sidewinder blows up I'll receive my replacement back at the middle of nowhere station where I started, so it's not in my interest to move too far until I'm able to afford to upgrade a bit and insure the upgrade?

Ah... apparently my crime is trespassing... if I don't get the hell out of dodge the minute I clear the window traffic control flips out...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 28, 2016, 07:33:06 AM
Yay, I have a lovely Viper now, the bigger one.

Which I almost crashed into the sun and then DID crash into a space station.  Thank fuck for shields.

Loving this.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on December 28, 2016, 07:54:16 AM
One tip - if you approach a station from the direction of the thing its orbiting, then in general the entrance will be facing you.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 28, 2016, 08:17:49 AM
As everyone who has ever played Elite back in the day should know.   :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mandella on December 28, 2016, 09:24:30 AM


- NOT GETTING FINES: speed always under 100m/s when docking. Above is considered being reckless and you are responsible for ensuing damage to non-speeding ships.

I just hope the tailgating asshole NPCs who "help" me get to dock by pushing me from behind while I'm carefully navigating the rotating dock window get a flipping ticket too.

Either that or let me drop mines while entering...

 :drill:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 28, 2016, 05:09:56 PM
I finally got the grade 5 dirty drive tuning. It is the most intense yet rewarding grind I've ever gone through.

I put them on my Cutter and now it maneuvers better than a stock Python.

I put them on my Clipper, which now performs like a small fighter despite being like 700 tons or something.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 28, 2016, 05:15:49 PM
I will retry a version of this video tonight with more asteroids, but thisis what I can do now

https://youtu.be/BXiByjx2lf8


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 30, 2016, 04:00:53 PM
Damn, but getting fucking killed by the cops over a mishap to the tune of 100k is just not fun.  You can't outrun that shit either.  Or, at least, I can't.  Twice.

On a related note, the discovery scanner is a powered thing I need to press.  Who knew.  As to what the fuck, who also knows.

I mean, I know this is like a broken record in this thread, but this game badly, badly needs a fucking help button.

Still enjoying the shit out of it though.   How does one meet people in it tho ?  I've seen a couple of players around, but it seems to be just intrusively messaging them to say hi ?  Doesn't seem right somehow...


I require more Vespene Gas Cold Hard Cash.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Surlyboi on December 30, 2016, 09:05:47 PM
MOAR PYLONS!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on December 30, 2016, 10:07:17 PM
That happened to me last night. I threw out chaff and boosted out of there and got clear.

If you want a really boring grindy way to do nothing but make cash, this guide is pretty good. https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteTraders/comments/5e0v3n/masarks_guide_to_trade_sidewinder_to_anaconda_v20/


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 31, 2016, 02:44:20 AM
diaguandri is kind of a social hub atm. open play is an interesting, halfbaked experiment marred by the lack of any real crime and punishment system.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 31, 2016, 02:56:19 AM
Tonight was a very strange leap forward in my quest to engineer everything to the hilt. I had been doing these very ... interesting base runs, where I have to scan three towers in a planetary facility in my buggy in under a minute or whatever. I had been doing this to get a Grade 3 type of data which had proven very elusive and which I needed for my Grade 5 Dirty Drive Tuning.

It turns out while I was doing that, I acquired many, many pieces of an apparently excruciatingly elusive very rare data commodity called "Modified Embedded Firmware" that most people lament being unable to get, but which is needed for the highest grade Overcharged weapons mod. Today I realized I had all the components I needed, and spontaneously gave my cutter a grand total of five maximum level overcharged incendiary/corrosive autocannons (including my huge), and even maxed out two large multicannons to put on my clipper.

i swear, leapfrogging over all the remaining credit hurdles in this game spontaneously allowed me to do so much more varied shit


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 31, 2016, 10:57:38 AM
That happened to me last night. I threw out chaff and boosted out of there and got clear.

If you want a really boring grindy way to do nothing but make cash, this guide is pretty good. https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteTraders/comments/5e0v3n/masarks_guide_to_trade_sidewinder_to_anaconda_v20/

This guide is all type of awesome.  Thanks Much.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 31, 2016, 03:51:04 PM
Getting maximum engineered weapons & a charge enhanced distro makes even the heavy ships melt like they used to back in the day, before engineering tacitly buffed them. I just did a weird coastline change in the game's difficulty with all this engineering wankery.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on December 31, 2016, 10:02:30 PM
If you want to be earning empire/federation rank while doing this, shoot space assholes in the appropriate territory. You get rank credit for handing in bounties on space assholes.

Can you elaborate on this?  I hunted bounties in a HighRES in an Empire controlled system (HIP 10716) for several hours, and my Empire rank didn't increase at all (even after 4 million credits in bounties).  My reputation DID increase, just not the rank.

Or do you mean taking the pirate hunting missions from Empire-backed factions?



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on December 31, 2016, 10:08:51 PM
Have taken a couple of months off from this, but itching to jump back in. I am still a noob, but I have fun wandering around and delivering shit and killing idiot NPCs who interdict me in much shittier ships  :awesome_for_real: Gimme a shout on Steam if anyone wants to team up if you see me on.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on December 31, 2016, 10:51:33 PM
I recently reinstalled this to poke around, so I'm playing this a bit on Steam too.

I totally forgot you can land on planets now. Why would I want to do that anyway?

Did some mining (planetary rings are a pretty awesome sight) for the first time a couple of nights ago, was pretty easy and fairly engaging since I have to catch all the rocks that break off. Sure could use some limpets though .. it's lame they are used up like ammo. Got me some cash due to a "quest" for some minerals, which really helped out my wallet!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 01, 2017, 10:32:33 AM
You might be using them the wrong way. Don't target the bits that fly off. just launch the limpet drones and let them bring in the ore themselves. If you target ore and launch it they will bring that ore in and self destruct.

I quite like mining myself.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 01, 2017, 11:23:00 AM
yeah the only one-off use limpets should be prospectors. everything else is supposed to just follow you for the duration of its lifespan and scoop up anything that comes off the space rock (if it doesn't suicide on the space rock, that is)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 01, 2017, 11:34:08 AM
You use prospector limpets by firing them at the asteroid you want to check out and then you should get a readout to see whats in it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on January 01, 2017, 04:30:22 PM
Will try again, didn't look like I could launch them without something targeted.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 01, 2017, 04:50:30 PM
you need a collector limpet controller and a prospector limpet controller.

prospector limpets are essentially necessary because using one on a space rock doesn't just tell you what's in the rock, an a-grade limpet makes the rock produce five times as many fragments before being exhausted

collector limpet drones you just launch and they follow you and auto-collect fragments for a time period determined by the class and grade of the controller.

two small mining lasers produce fragments a bit faster than three limpets can collect.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on January 01, 2017, 05:33:00 PM
oooo good to know!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 01, 2017, 06:37:44 PM
also fyi if you are farming, definitely farm in pristine metallic rings!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Rendakor on January 02, 2017, 05:45:07 AM
I think I'm going to cave and buy this. Do I need Horizons too?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 02, 2017, 08:27:48 AM
No.  I've barely touched Horizons, though I would buy it anyway !

Sam, what's your recommendation for a nice entry mining setup ?  I now have a lot of credits and an Asp Explorer....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 02, 2017, 09:31:01 AM
I have to say that I'm enjoying the game more than I thought I would (and even considering getting Saitek X52 pro though I'll have to play a bit more before seriously considering it).  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: rattran on January 02, 2017, 10:54:39 AM
This is the game most in need of a decent tutorial of the year.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 02, 2017, 11:12:57 AM
I know, right ?

I've learned a lot though, quite a lot of it on this thread.  There's also a lot of 3rd party sites out there that do the heavy lifting for finding shit in the galaxy, so that's good too.  I truly wish the tech had a 'Tech Level' button on a System like the original had.  Too hard to find that bit of your ship you're looking for without one of those sites.

Also, got interdicted for the first time today and had the Iron Ass to fight back.  Totally fucking nuked him.  That'll teach that asshole to covet my 112 tons of Slaves.  Er.  I mean Textiles.  Yeah.  Textiles.  Or something.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 02, 2017, 11:48:05 AM
This is the game most in need of a decent tutorial of the year.

i remember when i played MWO and the interface was so bad that the game was painfully unfun unless you included 'the internet' as an intergral metalayer. you had to have community resources to guide you and let you know what sucked and what didn't, or you would have a cruel set of months playing with builds you didn't even realize were hypershitty. and the interface for building mechs was so painful that you had to construct them in external tools before cobbling them together in game.

this game takes that to the absolute extreme. the internet is part of the game. you cannot play without exterior resources.

oh hey speaking of exterior resources:

http://inara.cz/  <- very helpful, vital with engineers and other stuff

https://eddb.io/ <- very helpful for trading, finding stuff, building

http://www.edshipyard.com/ <- build-a-ship


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 02, 2017, 12:36:15 PM
Also ;  http://roguey.co.uk/elite-dangerous/equipment/ (http://roguey.co.uk/elite-dangerous/equipment/)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 02, 2017, 03:16:51 PM
my mining sretup was similar to this one. I actually riped out my Asps mining equipment last night to go trading, otherwise I;d directly tell you

https://coriolis.io/outfit/asp/25D5D5A4D4A5D5C2m2m12121212030002030504C0C0C01lP4.Iw18WQ==.Aw18WQ==

The thing about dual medium mining lasers is they will overheat really fast. For a more consistent blast of mining 1 med and 1small will be much better and will actually mine it out faster. 2 Limpet controllers will be more than enough with that setup. I actually had an 8 rack refinery running in one of the class 3 slots, and a cargo in the class 2 slot where the class 6 refinery is in that link (you can stick a limpet controller in there if you want). The extra refinery slots are very handy. Keep flushing out the ore you don't want before it gets to 100% as that way it wont generate a can that your limpets will helpfully insist on bringing back to you. The guns aren't especially necessary but hey.

To avoid the suicide limpet problem try and find a spot to mine there the asteroid will not be rotating as much, the "pole" of the rock. Limpets will dive in close to the rock to get ore and if the rock is spinning it will smash the limpet. Try and mine at an angle as well so the ore sprays out away from the rock.

Also, small tip that will avoid close encounters; turn on your lights (L by default I think). That way you can see them shining off the rock as you get close, which might be a clue to hit the breaks.  :oh_i_see:

Also check the board for mining missions when you leave, and when you dock. You can make some serious coin off whose.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 02, 2017, 03:43:17 PM
Thanks, I just had an absolute 'mare with it, much to the amusement of the wife ;  dropped the cash on a nice wee Cobra and fitted it out and then found my mining spot and then found out you should stock the collectors and prospectors BEFORE leaving the fucking station.   :why_so_serious:

Tried to pick that shit up manually for a while, which she could not stop laughing about and then I gave up.  Flew back to the nearest port to find I didn't have a docking computer now and had to do it manually and when I did it turned out nearest port didn't have resupply facilities.

Over here it's currently midnight so FUCK THIS SHIT, I'll pick it up again in the morning.

 :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 02, 2017, 09:46:24 PM
Let's see. Ok, in response to a question earlier i worked out the best early-buy-in Quality Mining Platform. It works great for something you can access at just one and a half million in assets! Yay!

http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=9080,JrO0JrO0,,9p30A7g0ANI0Acw0Aq_0B3_0BKE0Bb60,07200720072007205Sc07QE00Yi05uk0

you will note it will use the much less spritely Cobra type and has no weapons and the Barest Minimum Shield for happy little accidents and fleeing to hyperspace, so stay out of trouble in it.

If this lasts you long enough and you get to the next tier of mining, your next quality mining platforms are the AspX and then the Python.





Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 02, 2017, 11:19:33 PM
The type 6 makes a decent miner too.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 02, 2017, 11:57:25 PM
But you can't get the Cobra four unless you're special, right ?  It's a backers thing ??


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 03, 2017, 01:40:23 AM
I think it was a special edition of Horisons or something. I never got it anyway.

I think my first experiments in Mining were in an Adder. I did the chasing fragments thing and said never fucking again. That was also when I found that firing limpets at fragments made them self destruct...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Quinton on January 03, 2017, 10:45:19 AM
Thanks, I just had an absolute 'mare with it, much to the amusement of the wife ;  dropped the cash on a nice wee Cobra and fitted it out and then found my mining spot and then found out you should stock the collectors and prospectors BEFORE leaving the fucking station.   :why_so_serious:

Mining with just lasers and cargo scoop in Elite makes mining in EVE seem glorious by comparison.

I managed to mine and refine three units of liquid oxygen (including manually flushing the impurities), got my 55K reward, and swore to never, ever do that again.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on January 03, 2017, 12:04:59 PM
Do they still have camera shake when you accelerate / decelerate to aim your ship at the station docking slot?  (It was esp. noticeable in the bigger ships type 6 etc. - gave me a headache and I quit playing, because there was no option to disable it.)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 03, 2017, 12:24:10 PM
I've never noticed any camera shake.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 03, 2017, 01:28:51 PM
Sometimes the Docking Computer goes mental, trying to be a perfectionist, but that's about it.  Usually I take the docking slot at about 200* so I've never noticed anything else.....

* That's What She Said.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: hal1 on January 03, 2017, 06:34:25 PM
I have to say reading this thread I have no idea weather I should buy this or not. If you can figure it out it might be fun. But if you can not figure it out it is gonna suck


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 03, 2017, 06:40:50 PM
Honestly, I think its best as a game you dip in and out of. There is no overarching story, and it has the "million miles wide and inch deep" problem. The space flight part is very good, but if you like concrete goals given to you there are not any. But if you just want to kick back, crack on a podcast, and watch the scenery go by in space there is no game out there like it right now. The combat is pretty decent as well, though I don't think its the games strongest point.

Space can feel pretty empty though, as there is not much interaction out there. You kinda have to find the things to do and the in game explanations are pretty crap.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 04, 2017, 12:09:26 AM
i appreciate that i can play it and post at the same time


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 04, 2017, 02:07:57 AM
If you have 2 mill, and give a crap about my opinion, this is a decent enough starting miner. Its the Type 6 Hull, has 3 collector limpets and a 7 slot refinery, and 64 cargo which is great for a starting mining vessel. If you were to upgrade anything its the thrusters. The Type 6 is a nice manoeuvrable ship, but its totally defenceless so running like hell is your best option if you see trouble. Upgrade shields and add chaff/other defences to taste and cashflow. I actually had a lot of fun learning how to mine in this thing a year ago.

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/type_6_transporter?code=0p7tdFdl8das8f42l2l---0404C82143P1C3.Iw1%2FkA%3D%3D.Aw1%2FkA%3D%3D.&bn=Beginning%20Miner


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 04, 2017, 02:20:40 AM
Here's the thing, from someone who's now tried the whole mining thing ;  How in the name of almighty fuck can I make consistent money mining ?  

If you get fucked by RNG for the missions, I don't see how you get a proper return and I've tried to find 'good' rings, but not really sure what I'm looking for or where I'm supposed to be looking.

Honestly, having seen the sheer amount of cash you can be rolling in trading rares or slaves, I don't really get the mining thing, though it's fun as hell to watch your wee collector dash about collecting what turns out to be worthless Ruprite or whatever.

Feel free to post to prove me wrong !


Edit.  This guide  (https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1npzKEXpExd1aEz_hLvlQIELL1uX4gvVHtY9AhQ-CcCI/edit#slide=id.g1339a6bfc5_74_0)tells me I'm doing it wrong.  Ok.  I might try doing it right tonight.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 04, 2017, 03:00:29 AM
You find the metallic rings by scanning the planet then clicking on it in the system view. It will show you the composition of the rings. 'A' rings are the closest to the planet. Otherwise, follow that guide. Its pretty good. Remember, you are going to be ditching most of the ore you mine in any case and keeping the cream.

At a risk of causing a stampede to the place, I usually mined in a system called Jura, that had a Giant with a pristine metallic ring.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 05, 2017, 04:34:51 AM
Do they still have camera shake when you accelerate / decelerate to aim your ship at the station docking slot?  (It was esp. noticeable in the bigger ships type 6 etc. - gave me a headache and I quit playing, because there was no option to disable it.)

Just replying to this as I am in a Type 7 now, and I started noticing the Camera shake you were talking about. I found it highly annoying too, so I checked the options and they do have a "Reduce camera Shake" option which gets rid of it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on January 05, 2017, 06:37:53 AM
I stopped playing prior to Horizons due to the grind but I'm finding myself wanting to play it again.

Any 'easy' ways to make cash fast? I'm currently mining in a Cobra 3 with ~2 mil in the bank (was looking at upgrading to mining in a Cobra 4).

I've read about Robigo missions being hugely profitable but it sounds like I'd need a large cargo bay and a decent jump range so I'm reluctant to make the ~400LY trip just to find out my Cobra can't cut it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 05, 2017, 06:47:37 AM
Well, if you have 2 mill in the bank you can stash your cobra and buy and rig up up type 6 transporter so you will have a large enough cargo bay to try bulk trading, such as at Robigo. Or you can mine in the type 6, using the setup I posted a few posts back

Trading guide I posted up thread for making money in boring grindy way. I'm doing it myself at the moment and it works. https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteTraders/comments/5e0v3n/masarks_guide_to_trade_sidewinder_to_anaconda_v20/


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 05, 2017, 07:02:39 AM
That's the guide I used and it works really, really well.

I'll echo what Sir T said ;  with that cash, you can be on the Type-6 bit of the guide which should be netting you about a quarter of a mill per rare run, minimum, or possibly more if you just want to trade slaves on a superconductor route.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 05, 2017, 07:40:13 AM
And I'm on a type 7 now, trading Imp Slaves and Silver, and making 890k per back and forth run...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on January 05, 2017, 12:38:36 PM
I checked the options and they do have a "Reduce camera Shake" option which gets rid of it.

Thanks!  I can give the game a try again.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 05, 2017, 06:06:16 PM
It's happening, we've encountered thargoids. They can interdict us in interSYSTEM warp.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 05, 2017, 06:23:48 PM
https://youtu.be/zSwzClHY7iI


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 05, 2017, 09:18:05 PM
Scary biscuits.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 05, 2017, 09:35:58 PM
Can I give more daps to the sound team? They bring their a-game to everything they do. The sound from that encounter was super cool, especially with bass.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Soln on January 06, 2017, 08:28:07 PM
Dumb question, chaps: is this just Eve?  Is there any walking around?  All the gameplay vids seem to show cockpit footage, so I wanted to check...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 06, 2017, 08:47:56 PM
No, there is no walking around in a room by yourself.  :why_so_serious:

The most you get is driving around on a planets surface in a buggy. Otherwise is Cockpits away, baby!

I still dont know what you actually DO on a planet. I tried the tutorial and I was stymied because there wasn't any default controls for the buggy, and I wasn't sure what to set them up as.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 06, 2017, 09:51:44 PM
I have spent quite some time in a buggy hunting a bevy of materials for Engineers, including data raids on settlements. Now that THERGOLS are here, I will go check out the first known 'barnacles' to see if anything changed.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 07, 2017, 04:19:26 AM
Righto, so a couple more questions :

1 - What's the deal with the keyboard layout.  The more I play, the more I'm finding references to default keys that aren't setup or don't exist.  While it's five seconds work to sort it, it's pissing me off.  Anyone else noticed this ?

2 - Can someone give me a rundown on the Weapons in the game and what the different deals are.  Again, Shooties are best against hulls and pew pew is best against shields, but what do the different versions do ?  What's the difference between a beam and a multi, for example.  Just a quick idiots guide or link would be great.

Cheers.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 07, 2017, 07:09:41 AM
1) All the time. Really annoying.

2) YOur best bet is the ED Wikia http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Weapons


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 07, 2017, 12:11:39 PM
And I'm on a type 7 now, trading Imp Slaves and Silver, and making 890k per back and forth run...

Where are you getting the slaves with a large landing pad ?  Or have I fallen prey to the 'best loop on the database, but not the only way to do it' ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 07, 2017, 07:23:59 PM
Well, maybe you are just trying the wrong area. I use https://eddb.io/trade/loops and put in "Calennero" in the Your location box. I guess i was lucky enough to be in a good area for slaves.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 08, 2017, 09:02:11 AM
Yeah, I found one.  Made rather a lot of money on it and I'm now in my own Type-7 and, Jesus Christ, it's a frigging brick.  With other ships you have the temptation to upgrade and do 'other roles' but this thing is useful for only one thing and that's making lots of trade money.  Or mining, I guess, but sod that too.

So, I'm fairly happy, even tho I bug this thread all the damn time.  What's the consensus on Powerplay ?  What's the point ?  Is it worth it to start it ?  Why ?  And How ?  And who's everyone allied with ?

Questions, questions, questions....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 08, 2017, 10:40:57 AM
so if you're enjoying trading but are (wisely) displeased by the sluggishness of the freighters, you should do what I did and spend the premium for Multipurpose/Multiroles. You're in kind of a special zone with regards to the cargo capacity, though. Imperial Clipper is essentially superior in all ways to a Type 7 if you're willing to get the ranks out of the way, but that's saying something given the realities of the rank grind.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 08, 2017, 11:44:01 AM
also if haulage gets tedious you can immediately swap out for an Asp Explorer, which has no glaring faults and performs excellently at most E:D tasks (and can have an unengineered 30+ ly jumprange which is holy shit)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 08, 2017, 11:13:01 PM
I'm still not entirely sure about how to rank grind for the factions. I found this guide but I might be slow (Ok I'm slow) but I couldn't quite grasp how it works. Still, here is the guide.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/4sguoa/this_imperial_rank_grind_actually_works/

I'll probably Type 7 my way to a Python for the Medium landing pad and then try it. I'll probably buy a Vulture for now though as the looping is pretty boring and I need some pew to break up the tedium.

Anyway, The powerplay is another subject I haven't looked at. But here is the wiki page. Basically you gain benefits for being with the faction and working for it. Obviously the ones with bonuses to bounties are more popular, but the system is set up so the smaller your power the easy it is to maintain its territory. Also you can buy special weapons after being with a power for a month.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Powerplay


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 09, 2017, 08:12:38 AM
I actually did something very similar, and this is more efficient. You also get a fair bit of cash from that much mission stacking and it doesn't get slowed down with stuff.

I actually now Highly Recommend the empire grind while engaging in normal progression because if you do that you get some very, very good ships that are best for their monetary tier and have incredibly diverse utlility. You can move from iEagle to iCourier to iClipper. When you have the clipper, you have the sweetest ride all the way to having, like, a python or conda.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 09, 2017, 08:19:02 AM
I have to say I'm losing my interest slightly in the game due to being repeatedly blown up while mining by enemies that kill my type-6 in 5 seconds from first shot despite shields and pd. I guess I could go back to bounty-hunting at nav points or passenger missions but those were getting a bit boring and needed a change.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 09, 2017, 09:50:11 AM
Are you mining at the designated mining areas ?  Because that's not as safe as you'd think...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 09, 2017, 09:56:50 AM
Are you mining at the designated mining areas ?  Because that's not as safe as you'd think...

I usually go about 50km from RES in a medium security system but it might be a time to increase the distance or just take the extra effort to jump to another part of the ring.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 09, 2017, 10:02:59 AM
Well, if you drop into a belt dont go the the Resource Sites. Those are meant for combat and wil have pirates showing up all the time. Find some other area in the ring. 50kms from the RES is WAY too close as you are still in the same instance. Find an area completely away from the RES. You can just fly into the ring anywhere along it and it will drop you into rocks.

Then if you drop in wait a second to see if some pirate will come in. If one does wait a bit and he will come over and scan you. Then he will complain you have nothing on you and sod off. THEN you can start mining. If you have any ore at all in your hold when he scans you you are boned.

Third. A point defence only defends against missiles. You want a chaff launcher. That will screw up his shooting for 20 seconds. Enough to boost away and out of there. That's why I always prioritise having powerful thrusters to get out. Boost defaults to TAB I think, and firing a chaff launcher defaults to O.

And there is a key to set your scanner to a set distance away so it wont show really close distances due to the ore in it. I would do that so you are not blinded by all the things close to you and will have some warning when something comes close so you can packup and get out.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 09, 2017, 10:16:22 AM
The PD is only there against alpha as it's automatic whereas chaffs would require me to manually use them. The last few times I've been killed it has been literally in 5 seconds or so so thrusters etc wouldn't have made much difference especially since the cargo hatch is open preventing it.

(and probably the fact that I tend to lose my focus when mining since it can be rather monotonous which affects my reaction time).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 09, 2017, 10:19:49 AM
Well like I said, set your scanner at a wide distance and don't go NEAR a RES site. I think I was only attacked once at a random place along a ring far from a RES. Yes pirates WILL go 50kms away from the beacon to scan anything in the instance. RES's are for combat not mining. I only made that mistake once.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 09, 2017, 12:43:58 PM
RES sites DO have better resources. But that does not compensate for that they are constant pirate spawning combat farming sites.

Go to an isolated empty region with an empty hull. Get scanned by one pirate. Then ... Hide, mine quietly, keep your radar on, and bug out to fsd jump range if you see an approaching ship, especially if you're a glass ship


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: palmer_eldritch on January 09, 2017, 03:49:05 PM
So dumb question but to what extent is this an MMO? Are these pirates you are talking about NPCs, or players?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on January 09, 2017, 03:53:26 PM
So dumb question but to what extent is this an MMO? Are these pirates you are talking about NPCs, or players?
In my opinion, it is in no way an MMO. The tools for facilitating social interaction are woefully under developed.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 09, 2017, 04:42:58 PM
So dumb question but to what extent is this an MMO? Are these pirates you are talking about NPCs, or players?

Players elect to play in one of three modes: Open, Solo, or Private Group. In Open you get instanced with a number of other players in the same system as you who are also in Open. In Solo it's just you and never any other player. In Private Group, it's anyone else in the group you've signed in to. So you can just play with a friend or two, or join one of the very large private groups.

Normally, Open Play just means you occasionally come across other players, some of which are intentional gankers who can repeatedly intercept and murder you.

There is a private group called Mobius which is essentially a multi-thousand player open group where pvp is prohibited so you can fly around not worrying about the random pirate murderer humans.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/38362-Dedicated-Player-vs-Environment-Groups-with-over-32-000-Commanders

All in all it's like .02% of an MMO. extremely minimal multiplayer functionality.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on January 09, 2017, 06:55:04 PM
The Empire grind takes a LONG time.  I've been working on it doing that HIP -> Wu Gunangi loop and you can get maybe 25-35% rank increase with each loop.  Each complete rotation (1 system in HIP, and 3 in Wu Gunangi), plus switching from Open to Solo for the mission stacking means each loop take perhaps 20-30 minutes (including jumping).  After about a week of grinding I've made it to Master.  It is immensely boring.

I was grinding rank for the Clipper, but ended up earning enough cash to just outright buy an A-rated Vulture (about 24 mil credits).  Is the Vulture better than a fully decked out Clipper?  I've had some good luck at High RES sites taking on Anaconda's and Python's for 250K (two large pulse lasers is pretty nice for so little cash), but wondering if the Clipper is considered an 'upgrade' from the Vulture.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 09, 2017, 07:37:05 PM
A vulture is great, it's just not an upgrade from the clipper in any real sense. The vulture is hyperfocused on combat, no real cargo or internals room, strictly capped on power supply and loadout variability, low FSD range, slower than average top speed. It's strictly a heavy dogfighter. It does this excruciatingly well, by combining insane pitch rates with two heavy hardpoints. You can use this ship to bounty hunt/merc for days and days. Your 'time on target' will be so high that you have to use the efficient weapons (pulses, MC's) to spew out continuous sustained damage against enemies.

The Clipper is a true multipurpose, has way too much internal space for the price, and handles too well for its size. Its only downsides are low shield caps, large docking size and very laterally distant weapon hardpoints that don't work as fixed weapons and must be gimbals. It and the Courier are just way, way too good compared to what else you can get at those money brackets, and the Clipper will serve you well all the way up to the point where you can afford a Python or Anaconda, so between those two ships I recommend keeping your Empire ranks up as you go so you can have these ships as you progress.

For 24m you can have a basic trade clipper that carries over 200 tons of cargo. By the time you've put 5-10 million in it, pirates don't stand a chance of killing you and you can usually just kill them instead. Then you can just keep upgrading it all the way to about 160/170m.

It is also, it should be noted, a prime candidate for Engineering. Once you have an A-rated clipper and some spare cash you could actually just shelve the money grind and start using it as a universal travel-everywhere do-anything ship to complete all the various Engineering tasks.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 10, 2017, 02:20:56 AM
Seems like my type-6 is going to get an extra second or two of life when attacked today when the patch (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/320627-Elite-Dangerous-2-2-03-Update-incoming?p=4988978#post4988978) doubles its hull health.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Surlyboi on January 10, 2017, 06:41:17 PM
Apparently, someone ran afoul of aliens the other day.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 11, 2017, 04:05:05 AM
Also, one page back.

Unless you mean that someone has since got munsoned by them.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 11, 2017, 06:29:47 AM
Apparently if you want your own encounter you can try jumping in the area around the Maia system. Anal probes don't hurt that much.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Unknown_Ship


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 11, 2017, 12:45:36 PM
Some intense and fun dog fighting there.  One Cobra MkIII I had to salute for managing to get away from me at 1% hull.  Awesome.

And then I found out that the repair unit can't repair a totally fucked canopy and you can't see your HUD when your canopy blows up.  lol.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 11, 2017, 12:59:34 PM
Since this is said to be coming to PS4, should I keep my eye on this game?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 11, 2017, 01:02:20 PM
This is truly a game you have to have an appetite for.  A real interest.  Otherwise it's flimsy and boring as shit.

I love it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 11, 2017, 02:04:33 PM
Follow-up question then, How's it play on a console / controller?

And I was one of the few that actually played and enjoyed No Man's Sky... so I got that going for me.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on January 11, 2017, 02:53:49 PM
Follow-up question then, How's it play on a console / controller?

And I was one of the few that actually played and enjoyed No Man's Sky... so I got that going for me.
If you thought NMS was absolute tits and you don't need to walk around then you will love Elite.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 12, 2017, 06:51:48 AM
spoilered for size:  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 12, 2017, 06:59:33 AM
Very true.  I made enough with my Type-7 that the first thing I did was rebuy the Asp Explorer.  I'm fine now using my 7 for going onwards with the trading journey, but the Asp can do everything and it sounds like a motherfucking Spitfire.  What's not to like ?



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 12, 2017, 02:27:48 PM
I hate the asp's flight profile so much and its reverse thrusters are weak enough that I now just steer straight into the landing pad to stop. I'm always grumbling about the asp in various ways, like its drony sound and its rusty junk-iron instrument panel and its boxy shape. Why?

Because the asp is so goddamned good that you will find yourself using it all the time. A plus best ship. Engineer yours immediately.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 12, 2017, 02:29:22 PM
"Ugh I wish this ship wasnt so good I was always using it" I say as I travel between destinations in 50+ lightyear jumps


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on January 12, 2017, 02:31:22 PM
lol. Maybe they will sell you a skin/sound pack for it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on January 12, 2017, 02:43:28 PM
Alexa-powered ship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScE4ky6_U5k


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 12, 2017, 02:57:01 PM
My goal is to have a pimped out combat ship, a pimped out trading ship, and a pimped out exploring ship eventually. Then I can fuck around and do whatever sounds like fun, and leave ships scattered across the galaxy like discarded Hot Wheels  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 13, 2017, 01:16:08 AM
Yeah, that was my goal too and I'm two thirds of the way there.

Saw two passenger missions last night for scary amounts of money - totalled together it would be about 100 million.  Jesus Fuck, I thought, I must get into the passenger game.

Then I looked at the destination they wanted to go to (they both wanted to go to the exact same place, which piqued my interest) and it was 22,000 ly away.  That's over 800 jumps even in my Aspy.

So, sure, it would leap you right into the money, but 800 jumps in my trader would be 800k per jump.  It's all baffling how it works.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 13, 2017, 03:00:26 AM
I splashed out (20 euros) on a voice pack for Elite dangerous yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDkC0GORdQ8

Its very good. The video uses Bill Shatner but I went for a Brent Spiner one. It really does give that game that extra sparkle. The video seems to imply that its talking all the time, but it really only talks to respond to specific phrases. If you turn interaction mode on it can talk now and again, but mostly it is silent unless responding to commands.

One of the good things is that you can set up macros and a lot are included. Such as saying "request docking" and it will go through that left console->contacts->select->go down 2->select "request docking" thing you have to do all the time.

The downside of it is - documentation. One thing that foxed me is that you have to install the pack into the same directory as the voice attack program. What it said in the docs that you have to leave the install directory alone. Also the list of commands they give in their "comprehensive manual" is woefully incomplete. And finally the "introduction script" that they have to introduce you to the character of the voice pack does not work for me. I'll post some more about it a bit later, with some tips I found for setting it up.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 13, 2017, 03:19:48 AM
I got Voiceattack a while ago and used the Anubis Free one.  I was of the opinion that it's a great thing, but it just wasn't configured enough and it relied on commands that no longer existed or just hadn't been setup in the game yet.

Also, it really, really didn't get the Scottish Accent.  Nothing like screaming at your spaceship for being a cunt while your chaff sits unused.


But let me know how the professional ones work and if they're worth it.  I watched a video of some chap using the Dhark one and it was all kinds of cool.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 13, 2017, 08:00:00 AM
Well, the first thing you should do is use windows speech recognition to train it to recognise your voice. They recommend doing it three times, I did it 4 or 5 times.

As for setting it up here is their original setup video, which has them doing it via talking the voice command when the computer is asking what key do you want to bind, and that still works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms3bL1wBBFg

This is their new setup video. The thing about importing the controls does not work in my voice pack, as I didn't get the plugin with it as it hasn't been upgraded yet. Eden is their best seller apparently, and this version is supposed to be released today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDkC0GORdQ8

Anyway, it actually wants "numpad /" as the supercruise command. I thin went down and filled in some of the SRV commands by clicking the binding, speaking the command and letting the voice pack press the keys, filling it in.

Ok, I've just had a hot steamy session of trading, and the first thing I could consider is to set up a key in voice attack for it to start listening. I was getting sick of hearing Data saying "zooming sensors" as I was watching the news while trading and the mic was picking it up. Otherwise it was picking up my commands reasonably well. There are a few sticklers, like when I was saying "60%" it kept going "30%" but it seems to be getting better about things like that. I have a weird accent too and a stutter, and besides that it works pretty well. You have to be fairly exact with the commands as you might guess, and speak in a newscaster voice a bit, but you get used to it pretty fast

The thing is that you need a cheat sheet as, as I mentioned, the documentation is pretty crap when it comes to the commands. You can actually export a HTML cheat sheet from voice attack, but someone put a Cheat sheet for the ASTRA pack in their forums, the commands are mostly the same bar a few pack specific commands, and this is more readable initially when you are getting used to using it. Highly reccomended.

http://forum.hcsvoicepacks.com/forum/elite-dangerous-discussion/10347-a-s-t-r-a-commands-cheat-sheet
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0epJNNW0B-dOWcwd2FobnZsRVk/view (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0epJNNW0B-dOWcwd2FobnZsRVk/view)

Otherwise this works brilliantly. I'm already looking at what other voice packs to get becasue this really does liven up the game a ton. Even the ability to ask for a randon fact while driving around is kinda cool. Like I said train the computer a few first before using it in battle. Its tedious but its well worth it. So far I'm recommending this. And it has not once failed to respond to a "Drop Chaff" command. :D


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 13, 2017, 08:25:08 AM
VoiceAttack is great for Elite and binding stuff like landing gear or cargo bay which you don't really want taking up your (active) hotkeys but you need regularly.
I'm torn between the Shatner voice pack and some others mostly due to the fact that the Shatner one probably won't be updated for stuff like SLF whereas some of the others are.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 13, 2017, 08:56:59 AM
Well you could probably pull macros from one of the other voice packs into the Shatner one once you are comfortable with what you are doing. It seems very moddable.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pagz on January 13, 2017, 03:49:27 PM
I wanna see peeps sweet ships, show me them!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 13, 2017, 05:00:04 PM
I'm torn between the Shatner voice pack and some others mostly due to the fact that the Shatner one probably won't be updated for stuff like SLF whereas some of the others are.

There may be a solution. The Astra voice pack apparently includes functions for multi crew AI voices, so if you buy her and Shatner, you can have Shatner as the main AI voice and Astra or whoever as the voice for the new functions that come in. I know I just bought Astra for that reason.

Also http://forum.hcsvoicepacks.com/forum/elite-dangerous-discussion/6398-multi-crew-profile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6F6Dm4pDAY


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 14, 2017, 03:06:24 AM
Stripped out the 6D Cargo Rack and put in some first class cabins.  Then took some woman a wee trip around for 9.5 million.

A much more enjoyable way to make money, and tons of explorer rank as I scanned systems as I went.

I love the Asp.  His drive range made it easy.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 14, 2017, 03:13:26 AM
I think I might try that. Trading blows Asp.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 14, 2017, 03:16:24 AM
Well, in fairness, I ALSO have my T7, but it got quite boring going back and forth like a ping pong ball.

But you see lots of cool sights and the woman wanted me to stop and buy her clothes which was actually kinda funny -  took ages to find a port that sold them !  It was just like having a nagging shrewish wife, but fun and not real and I knew at any point I could eject her into the cold vastness of space.

 :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 14, 2017, 03:38:13 AM
You mean you don't eject your wife into the cold vastness of Scotland occasionally?  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 14, 2017, 04:48:58 AM
No Comment.

Sold up and purchased a Python.

This was not a good decision.

At All.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 14, 2017, 06:34:10 AM
What's wrong with it? Its jump range is supposed to be crap, but aside from that its supposed to be one of the most balanced ships out there, bar the almighty Asp.

I was actually thinking should I start Imp missions in a Diamondback explorer just to be different, and if it would have enough cargo space to do them Its supposed to have the biggest jump range out there.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on January 14, 2017, 06:41:15 AM
My guess is that he had enough for the ship, but didn't realize he would have to spend almost as much again just to upgrade it so that it wasn't a flying brick.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 14, 2017, 06:49:57 AM
Eh, yeah, makes sense...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 14, 2017, 10:56:22 AM
No, it's just that I'm back to trading with a flying brick.  Even upgraded, it's a little shitty when you've decked it out for cargo.

Further, 2.5 million rebuy.  I haven't died in it yet, but I'm massively worried about if I do.

Also, I miss my Asp.  lol.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 14, 2017, 04:52:32 PM
The Python is an excellent ship, but you DO need to a-rate the thrusters as soon as is feasible. I skipped out on the Python and went to the Type-9 heavy, which was profitable, but painfully stressful. Everything was always on the line and you had to do submissions and high wake asap constantly.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 14, 2017, 04:53:24 PM
Like if I had to go back and do it again I'd go python no question. Of course my progression curve was weird because of the Clipper (which lasts FOREVER)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 15, 2017, 02:26:19 AM
Ok, it upgrades rather well.  Expensive as fuck to do so though.

Just getting my Asp back to where it was, which is easier due to the amount of cash the Python brings in when you're not upgrading it !


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 15, 2017, 04:13:37 AM
Go for an Anaconda to fund your multiple Asp upgrades, kids!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 15, 2017, 05:15:37 AM
To be honest, I think I'm done with the trade grind now.  I have my Python and my Asp and I'm going to spend some currency mucking about with a wee Cobra for old times sake, but I think I'm fine where I am finance wise.

Time to concentrate on the fun stuff - more discovery, more fighting and I guess I really need to push some rank and Engineer grind in there too.

I appear to be Chemically Addicted to the game at the moment tho.  Anyone in Open who wants to say hi, I'm usually to be found around Tsanlaya. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 15, 2017, 06:19:22 AM
Yeah. I cant really handle the trade grind for more than an hour. I'd making mining look exciting. I might get out some miners and try it this week.

Anyone know what cargo capacity you need to run the Imperial rep trade Grind? I'm at Master level and the clipper is calling my name with its sweet siren song of "The Type 7 Sucks ass"


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 15, 2017, 04:50:40 PM
To be honest, I think I'm done with the trade grind now.  I have my Python and my Asp and I'm going to spend some currency mucking about with a wee Cobra for old times sake, but I think I'm fine where I am finance wise.

Time to concentrate on the fun stuff - more discovery, more fighting and I guess I really need to push some rank and Engineer grind in there too.

I appear to be Chemically Addicted to the game at the moment tho.  Anyone in Open who wants to say hi, I'm usually to be found around Tsanlaya. 
Max your asp. Then its time for Elvira martuuk.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 15, 2017, 10:11:12 PM
Are you advanced/addicted players all using HOTAS setups to fly around? Or do you just have a joystick?

Despite spending 2 of my teenage years playing the C64 version, I haven't spent much time in today's Elite Dangerous despite owning it for over a year. I'd like to get into it but need to get myself adequately set up IRL (beyond current keyboard and mouse).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 16, 2017, 01:41:00 AM
To be honest, I think I'm done with the trade grind now.  I have my Python and my Asp and I'm going to spend some currency mucking about with a wee Cobra for old times sake, but I think I'm fine where I am finance wise.

Time to concentrate on the fun stuff - more discovery, more fighting and I guess I really need to push some rank and Engineer grind in there too.

I appear to be Chemically Addicted to the game at the moment tho.  Anyone in Open who wants to say hi, I'm usually to be found around Tsanlaya. 
Max your asp. Then its time for Elvira martuuk.

Good Advice.

As to your Question Tale, I'm using keyboard and mouse which works just fine, even in combat.  I'm quite sure having a nice joystick pilot setup makes the game somehow 'better', but I really don't see the need.

One thing I will say is that while Sams keyboard layout (quite a few pages back) is the absolute fucking nuts, I took my wee SRV out for the first time last night only to find out that the defaults the game give you make no sense whatsoever, are utterly awful when it comes to control and generally are a massive pain in the dick.

I know I need to master the SRV for advanced Engineer shit, so it's something I'll have to sort out fairly rapid...

I now have a wee type 6 miner setup that's sitting in a good system with Pristine rings.  Or so I thought.  Until I noticed that it's an Anarchy and when going back to the station to unload that million dollar load you get intercept attempts a fuck of a lot.

I guess I need to find a slightly safer system...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 16, 2017, 01:49:57 AM
To be honest, I think I'm done with the trade grind now.  I have my Python and my Asp and I'm going to spend some currency mucking about with a wee Cobra for old times sake, but I think I'm fine where I am finance wise.

Time to concentrate on the fun stuff - more discovery, more fighting and I guess I really need to push some rank and Engineer grind in there too.

I appear to be Chemically Addicted to the game at the moment tho.  Anyone in Open who wants to say hi, I'm usually to be found around Tsanlaya. 
Max your asp. Then its time for Elvira martuuk.

Good Advice.

As to your Question Tale, I'm using keyboard and mouse which works just fine, even in combat.  I'm quite sure having a nice joystick pilot setup makes the game somehow 'better', but I really don't see the need.

One thing I will say is that while Sams keyboard layout (quite a few pages back) is the absolute fucking nuts, I took my wee SRV out for the first time last night only to find out that the defaults the game give you make no sense whatsoever, are utterly awful when it comes to control and generally are a massive pain in the dick.

I know I need to master the SRV for advanced Engineer shit, so it's something I'll have to sort out fairly rapid...

I now have a wee type 6 miner setup that's sitting in a good system with Pristine rings.  Or so I thought.  Until I noticed that it's an Anarchy and when going back to the station to unload that million dollar load you get intercept attempts a fuck of a lot.

I guess I need to find a slightly safer system...


My favorite place to mine is Secomi-Salikians combo. Secomi has a station that wants metals and Salikians has a pristine ring in a medium security system. As a bonus both the station and the ring are close to the jump points (<1000Ls) and the jump between the systems is <10LY.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 16, 2017, 02:18:05 AM
Love your work.


EDIT :  That's a mere 200ly from my current position.  Sold to the Man with the unpronounceable name.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 16, 2017, 05:55:22 AM
Why do I read these threads... just spent last night watching vids about the game for almost 2 hours.  :awesome_for_real:

Wonder how dumbed down the PS4 port will be. Any info on the XBONE version, which I'm sure will be pretty close to the PS4 one?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: rattran on January 16, 2017, 08:53:15 AM
Finally decided that I was tired of watching videos and failing the tutorials, and launched the game. The combat, landing and such are much easier than they seemed, made 150k killing wanteds at about 1200 each, then got jumped by a ?vulture? that was 124k just for itself. Guess I'm hooked.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 16, 2017, 09:46:51 AM
So now you can get a Cobra or a nice wee Viper in the country.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on January 16, 2017, 10:37:27 AM
Finally decided that I was tired of watching videos and failing the tutorials, and launched the game. The combat, landing and such are much easier than they seemed, made 150k killing wanteds at about 1200 each, then got jumped by a ?vulture? that was 124k just for itself. Guess I'm hooked.
Get yourself a kill warrant scanner if you are going to be bounty hunting. It can have a substantial impact on bounty payouts.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on January 16, 2017, 02:34:03 PM
Are you advanced/addicted players all using HOTAS setups to fly around? Or do you just have a joystick?

I use a HOTAS but it might be overkill. There are a lot of buttons to map, which can be annoying. Even with my HOTAS I don't have enough buttons so I also rely on the keyboard for mundane tasks (open cargo scoop, landing gear, etc). (VoiceAttack sounds like it could be useful, but then I'd have to set up a mic .. ).

One of the reasons I don't play every night is because I have to pull out my HOTAS and get it set up on my desk. It takes too much room to leave out all the time.

I do really want to try this with a VR setup, it'd be perfect for that. Maybe one of these days....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 16, 2017, 03:22:30 PM
I use my HOTAS for power management and navigating menus.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 16, 2017, 03:40:27 PM
Jesus fuck, but Painite is a lovely money maker, isn't it ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 16, 2017, 06:29:57 PM
I am a couple of million short of building a big Asp ship for exploring proper. Right now I have a Type 6 with all the exploration gear on it, but I am mostly doing trade runs and scanning the occasional system. Once I figured out to look at the system map (and ignore all the shit planets and moons) before I started scanning things, it got a lot less ball bashing. Still bothers my completionist side to leave shit unscanned, but FUCK having to fly within 5 ls to scan some garbage icy body.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 17, 2017, 03:59:11 AM
Why are you doing it, though ?

If you're doing it for cash, there are better ways to make cash.

If you're doing it for Explorer Rank, take some passengers ;  it gives rank and money while you do it.

If you're just doing it for funsies, get trading and get that Type-6 to fuck.  A lovely, Lovely, Lovely Asp with modified engines is the baws for Exploring Funsies.

(Also, yes, fuck Icy Bodies.  And Asteroid fields.)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 18, 2017, 01:40:40 PM
So went mining in my type 7 today. Eh... its not great at it. It can run 2 small mining lasers with very slow time down, or 3 lasers if you don't mind stopping and starting a lot. Only made 1 1/2 mill for a few hours work, and I realised after the fact that I was just mining in a Metal rich belt, and I had forgotten what the profitable ores are.

Anyway, found a great guide for mining afterwards, well worth a read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/4wmgja/general_mining_guide_20/

One thing not mentioned is there is a key somewhere to toggle fire, so what I used to do is set up a key to toggle the laser fire constantly on, then sat back and managed my refinery.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on January 18, 2017, 01:50:58 PM
One thing not mentioned is there is a key somewhere to toggle fire, so what I used to do is set up a key to toggle the laser fire constantly on, then sat back and managed my refinery.

Hey, there's the money shot.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 18, 2017, 03:41:13 PM
I had a fun time mining the 300 tons of ore necessary for unlocking Selene as an Engineer. Do it right and it turns into an amazing show of limpet automation.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: rattran on January 18, 2017, 07:01:15 PM
I'm starting to get the hang of things, I'm in a summat mkiii now with 4 little plinky guns, upgraded everything and have a couple mil in the bank. I just have to figure out where the Empire is to cash in some bounties with them.

I think I'm going to have to start reading things outside the game to figure out more of how to play. Or read this thread from the beginning, but both seem less fun than just going to the res point and killing red guys.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 19, 2017, 02:23:30 PM
Now perfectly happy with my ASP and it's where I want it.  It has a really, really high rebuy cost now because most stuff is the A-Class, but I'm ok with that.  It doesn't really die.  The only potential thing I could upgrade is the Fuel Scoop from a C to an A, but it's hugely expensive and the thing already refuels in under a minute, so fuck it.

Currently thinking about upgrading my Type-6 Miner to a Type-7 miner, which could fit many more collectors and be able to carry a shield, as well as tons more cargo, so that's a thought.

Otherwise, it's maybe thinking about doing something with this fuck-beast of Cargo that is the Python.  It costs a metric Fuckton to upgrade and, frankly, it's at optimal for trading now, which is what it's meant to be doing, so I dunno.

There's also the thought of just blowing some money (of which I seem to have an abundance) on a wee Cobra of my own.  The passenger runs in the ASP are really raking in money still.  2.5 million to take five guys around 3 systems, all within 100 ly of each other.  That was just an insane payout for a couple of fucking jumps....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 19, 2017, 02:58:40 PM
If you are ok with the 2 small lasers of the Type 6, then you can have 5 collectors running on it on the type 7. But you can rig 2 medium miners on the Python and run them constantly, so its a far better miner than the type 7.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Rendakor on January 19, 2017, 04:29:34 PM
I'm getting completely obliterated in the tutorials. My ship seems to turn incredibly slow, making it very difficult for me to keep my enemy in front of me. I'm using the controls sam posted a few pages back; do I just suck or is there some simple "autofollow my target" button I'm missing?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on January 19, 2017, 04:47:23 PM
Get out of the tutorials. They are shit.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 19, 2017, 04:48:38 PM
Now perfectly happy with my ASP and it's where I want it.  It has a really, really high rebuy cost now because most stuff is the A-Class, but I'm ok with that.  It doesn't really die.  The only potential thing I could upgrade is the Fuel Scoop from a C to an A, but it's hugely expensive and the thing already refuels in under a minute, so fuck it.

Currently thinking about upgrading my Type-6 Miner to a Type-7 miner, which could fit many more collectors and be able to carry a shield, as well as tons more cargo, so that's a thought.

Otherwise, it's maybe thinking about doing something with this fuck-beast of Cargo that is the Python.  It costs a metric Fuckton to upgrade and, frankly, it's at optimal for trading now, which is what it's meant to be doing, so I dunno.

There's also the thought of just blowing some money (of which I seem to have an abundance) on a wee Cobra of my own.  The passenger runs in the ASP are really raking in money still.  2.5 million to take five guys around 3 systems, all within 100 ly of each other.  That was just an insane payout for a couple of fucking jumps....

You need to start engineering now. Your Asp will serve you forever. You must unlock Elvira Martuuk. You must, must, must get those G5 enhanced FSD jumps.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 20, 2017, 01:52:14 AM
I have her already at level 4 as I started that early, back when I was doing rare trades.  The last level is proving an arsehole to grind up to, but I have wake scanners ahoy and keep scanning the fuckers.  I'll manage it somehow !

I also have a couple of the other engineers at various levels.  I found Mr Gunny to be quite easy to grind up, though I tend not to use the gunnies that he upgrades.

For anyone else reading this, Sam posted an engineers guide a fair few pages back - go grab it, read it and love it.  It helps enormously.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 20, 2017, 07:44:35 AM
Yay. Ok. Aren't you gonna loooove getting Palin.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 20, 2017, 11:58:43 AM
Any advice for cramming useful shit into a Vulture? It is really tight on power, at least with my setup. Had to skimp on a few items to get under 12.00MW.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 20, 2017, 12:14:00 PM
Any advice for cramming useful shit into a Vulture? It is really tight on power, at least with my setup. Had to skimp on a few items to get under 12.00MW.

Why limit it to 12MW? You can cram a 4A on to it for 15.6MW (without eng mod).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 20, 2017, 01:09:25 PM
Stick a B shield and a shield booster on your vulture. You will get more shield strength for less power and cost


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on January 20, 2017, 02:40:59 PM
That's what I did - 5B bi-weave as well as two 1A shield boosters.

Also, fuck Imp clippers at conflict zones popping 8 shield cell banks in a row and making for 30+ minute fights.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 20, 2017, 09:24:05 PM
I'm getting completely obliterated in the tutorials. My ship seems to turn incredibly slow, making it very difficult for me to keep my enemy in front of me. I'm using the controls sam posted a few pages back; do I just suck or is there some simple "autofollow my target" button I'm missing?

By design the tutorial ships turn like shit. What you want to do is roll left or right (according to where you want to turn) and then pull up or down. I know it sounds stupid but that's how it is. Your ship doesn't reallly turn. Instead you roll (left or right) and then pull up. To explain it in another way, your ship can't turn for shit but can lift or dive its nose very fast (Again, a design decision that they explained about three years ago, they wanted the fast ships to feel like WW1 and WW2 dogfighters more than weightless spaceships) so... roll and then go up or down. It should make sense after a while.

And no, no autofollow. But rolling and then pulling up/down will become second nature soon.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Rendakor on January 21, 2017, 07:38:04 AM
So I really shouldn't bother with the tutorials?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 21, 2017, 08:00:39 AM
Well, play them, but if you cant manage the "advanced combat" one don't worry. Combat generally is not as hectic as that in the game. If you can beat the combat tutorial then you are fine.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 21, 2017, 11:25:48 AM
Yeah always remember that yaw is significantly constrained in this game so that the flight model doesn't turn into supremely boring turreting.

Best orientation practice is, as mentioned, in roll and pitch. Roll until your target is directly above or below your reticule, then pitch up or down until you reach it. Same advice applies when you are trying to put something on your radar in front of you. Target it, roll until it is on your radar's vertical axis, then pitch till you see it.

^ that paragraph there? if it doesn't make sense at first, read it a couple more times then give it a shot in the game. once it clicks, your brain gains three instant skill points in piloting


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 21, 2017, 11:28:02 AM
for the next couple of hours i will be doing data runs in medium security settlements. if you don't know what that is you probably want to watch me do it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 21, 2017, 12:04:14 PM
And how do we do that?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 21, 2017, 12:09:42 PM
^ that paragraph there? if it doesn't make sense at first, read it a couple more times then give it a shot in the game. once it clicks, your brain gains three instant skill points in piloting

I had an advantage in this becasue I used to play Independence War so spinning and pulling to turn was always natural to me.

And how do we do that?

With really strong Binoculars. Like, REALLY strong.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 21, 2017, 12:26:15 PM
And how do we do that?


I'm Samprimary on steam, friend up and watch on broadcast


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 21, 2017, 02:28:25 PM
No, you aren't.   :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 21, 2017, 03:00:34 PM
what is your battlesteamnet idcode


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on January 21, 2017, 05:11:00 PM
You guys should get on Discord - we can make an E:D channel


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 21, 2017, 05:48:40 PM
yeahhhh lets do that

turns out i had to reset everything to get broadcasting to work anyway


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Rendakor on January 21, 2017, 06:14:14 PM
I would like an invite to the E:D channel when it becomes a thing.

Starting to get the hang of it. I'm just flying around like a mailman in a spayce chip, and it's great. Upgraded my FSD so I can jump a bit further, too. What's a good ship to upgrade out of the starter ship? I plan to do mining, trading, etc. with as little combat as possible, for now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 21, 2017, 06:18:05 PM
The Adder or the Hauler are good early cargo haulers. I' a big Fan of the Diamondback Explorer then. Then you can hop into a Type 6. The Cobra is your "Jack of all trades" early ship to concider as well.

A discord could be fun


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: rattran on January 21, 2017, 06:19:01 PM
Heh, I'm doing the opposite, all combat to raise cash so I can try mining, mailman, trading etc later. In a souped up trashcan/vulture now!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on January 21, 2017, 07:26:31 PM
Our Discord server: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=25370.0
Channel forthcoming.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on January 21, 2017, 07:35:06 PM
No, you aren't.   :awesome_for_real:

I don't see Samprimary on Steam either.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on January 21, 2017, 07:39:57 PM
Me neither.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on January 23, 2017, 07:55:41 AM
So I decided the grind Imperial faction rather than doing trade loops and then grinding faction later, finally unlocked Clipper to find...

...Clipper needs a large pad and so I can't use it to continue to grind faction for the Cutter down in Wu Guinagi :-(

Thus ended my plans to use the Clipper to finish the grind to Cutter

So instead I traded by Keelback in for an Asp Explorer (since I could barely afford the Python hull) but, having put a class 6 shield on it, I don't have much more cargo than I had in the Keelback (although it's much more robust and the range is fantastic) so I was a little disapointed by the Asp as a [courier] mission ship


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on January 23, 2017, 08:28:49 AM
do you need a class 6 shield to do courier missions?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 23, 2017, 08:40:19 AM
I'm going to go with 'No'.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on January 23, 2017, 08:42:27 AM
(it was a leading question)   :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 23, 2017, 08:51:40 AM
I lead with it.


My Six slot is given over to a First Class passenger cabin, then I have the Five slot fuel scoop (it's a C just now, but will be an A tonight)

After that it's shields and 'the rest' of the shit, including a 8t cargo bay for when the passengers want to give me stuff as a reward.

I have A's on the Core stuff, so if I get interdicted by something I think I can't beat, I just leg it.


Does this work, I wonder ? (http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=A0g0,FBR0FBR0FBR0FBR0Hf50Hf50,DxG0Dhe0,9p30A8c0AOE0Ads0AsO0B5Y0BNC0Bcg0,,1dc050U07Pc00KU005U02jw02UI0)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on January 23, 2017, 09:04:37 AM
It looks like you have enough power to fit one (or maybe two) 0A shield boosters in the utility slot(s).  That should help offset the 3A shield generator.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 23, 2017, 09:14:14 AM
I meant the link. I know the ship works. Its my wee Cleopatra.

Yes , I could stick in shield boosts, but never needed them.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 23, 2017, 10:13:43 AM
My Asp Explorer is about a third of the price and a lot more limited in the role it serves: Asp Missioner (http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=A0g0,,CEg0,9p30A7W0AOi0Ads0AsO0B600BNC0Bcg0,,0AA0Bcg07Q4005U005U003w00nE0)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 23, 2017, 10:17:02 AM
Looks like trading is what it does ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 23, 2017, 10:27:45 AM
Mostly delivery missions which are nice when you get a couple with the same destination and low enough tonnage (just did a run for a total mission payout of 5.8m for about a 300ly trip which the ship has enough fuel for... the only hiccup was that the delivery station happened to be 300.000ls from the jump point  :why_so_serious:)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on January 23, 2017, 10:33:49 AM
the only hiccup was that the delivery station happened to be 300.000ls from the jump point  :why_so_serious:

I hate those!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on January 24, 2017, 06:32:59 AM
do you need a class 6 shield to do courier missions?

I'm going to go with 'No'.


I don't know, do I?

All I know is my Viper 4 was able to run from any interdiction and my Keelback wasn't. Neither was my Keelback able to survive long enough to leave an interdiction - as a stopgap I fitted a fighter and used it as a decoy while I bailed (which admittedly didn't work very well as I usually escaped with barely any hull). Since then I've actually be playing the interdiction mini game rather than submit and run the gauntlet.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 24, 2017, 07:43:09 AM
I'm gonna be honest, I've never been forcibly interdicted.  I find the wee mini game hugely easy and only submit when I don't quite fancy pointing the other way at the end of the whole strumash.

I've also not yet found the fight that kills me when I've wanted to have that fight with my wee 3A shield.  The big ships that are a danger, I can get away from, the small ships I can own with minor injuries at worst.

But this is just me - it's really up to you and your playstyle.  If you feel you need the shield, have the shield.   I have never run a Keelback, so I simply don't know....



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 24, 2017, 08:29:14 AM
My Type 7 can run from interdictions without a shot hitting the shield. I don't see how a Keelback would have any trouble, assuming you have maxed the thrusters and power to engines, and submit instantly. I've only taken damage from in interdiction once, and that was a whole 5% of my hull.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 24, 2017, 08:36:57 AM
The Type-7 Miner is lovely, by the way.  It seems to me to be the perfect balance of cost, storage and mining capability.

6 collectors, 2 mining lasers, a nice 9 bin refinery and 2 prospectors for finding that painite quick.  Just under 200t of storage.  I tried with 3 lasers, but it drained the capacitor and the drones pick up stuff perfectly with only 2, so fuck it, sold one of them.  Also, unlike the type-6, I can get a shield on it for those times when Elena makes me crash into shit.

I have that where I want it and I'm just leaving it in the dock beside a couple of lovely rings of pristine metallic.


I've looked at 'bigger' mining ships and I don't really see what they add to the mix, except possibly a faster mining rate you don't really need....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 24, 2017, 08:39:25 AM
Basically the Python can have 2 medium miners running constantly once you max the power Distributor, which I think effectively doubles your mining rate.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 24, 2017, 10:07:15 AM
Yeah, my point was I don't see the need.  I mine when I want to relax.  Scooping up a whole ring into my gub is not the point of the exercise.  Nor is it about cash, as such, because I make more ferrying folk.

 :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 24, 2017, 03:08:38 PM
how much cargo do you need for your bus service?   :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 24, 2017, 03:55:18 PM
I have an 8 ton bay.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 24, 2017, 04:41:41 PM
Neato thanks.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 24, 2017, 07:30:54 PM
This madness is nearly done.

http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=A0_0,Hf5Gu3CwPcGw00csPcHf5Gu3CwPcGw00csPcHf5Gu3CwPcGw00csPcHf5Gu3CwPcGw00csPcEkhGp4AvcQCn6uIvHsMye_EkhGp4AvcQCn6uIwdZMye_HhRGu3CwuOGvRvcri6,DBwGr56qUk8uUkIpCpMpCpQpCpDBwGr56qUk8uUkIpCpMpCpQpCpDBwHr56qUk8uUkIpCpMpCpQpCpDBwHr56qUk8uUkIpCpMpCpQpCpDBwIp415W04qKV8tCpCuFNDBwIp415W04qKV8tCpCuFNDhAKp22_006yPcCzYGU31200WvcQasPc,9onGp50upD4u00AjmfEjmfIjmfADIGq36vc68uxBCqISASwGp56Wzm8otaCXBbGw00KzNAAg_Jp50vCp6rwO8rwuGyRKOkXxAx4Gp22_006yPcBAEGo6ImFzKwdYQlTYSwdRYmqjawdRBQK0BeE0,7iM47iM4,7XRGh34vcQasPcgwPc0DI01tO31dc052241LU46D242UI02jw4


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on January 24, 2017, 08:59:42 PM
This madness is nearly done.

http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=A0_0,Hf5Gu3CwPcGw00csPcHf5Gu3CwPcGw00csPcHf5Gu3CwPcGw00csPcHf5Gu3CwPcGw00csPcEkhGp4AvcQCn6uIvHsMye_EkhGp4AvcQCn6uIwdZMye_HhRGu3CwuOGvRvcri6,DBwGr56qUk8uUkIpCpMpCpQpCpDBwGr56qUk8uUkIpCpMpCpQpCpDBwHr56qUk8uUkIpCpMpCpQpCpDBwHr56qUk8uUkIpCpMpCpQpCpDBwIp415W04qKV8tCpCuFNDBwIp415W04qKV8tCpCuFNDhAKp22_006yPcCzYGU31200WvcQasPc,9onGp50upD4u00AjmfEjmfIjmfADIGq36vc68uxBCqISASwGp56Wzm8otaCXBbGw00KzNAAg_Jp50vCp6rwO8rwuGyRKOkXxAx4Gp22_006yPcBAEGo6ImFzKwdYQlTYSwdRYmqjawdRBQK0BeE0,7iM47iM4,7XRGh34vcQasPcgwPc0DI01tO31dc052241LU46D242UI02jw4

Only a billion credits? #whysocheap


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 24, 2017, 10:41:12 PM
Add to that billion credits the grind needed to get the imperial reputation for cutter...  :ye_gods:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 25, 2017, 01:39:31 AM
Got offered 17 and a half million last night to run some passengers around 3 stops all within 300 ly.  What the fuck, I thought, I'm doing that.  It's pretty much orders of magnitude higher than I've ever been paid for such an easy run.

Then I get to the last bit and it's an Anarchy and she wants to see the Black Hole in the system.  lol.

Still made bank and it wasn't bad at all - Some of the views she wanted to see were truly breath taking and exciting.  I also made 250k on the survey data while moving her around.

I took some screenshots, which I'll see if I can whang up on Discord when I'm next on.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 25, 2017, 03:59:11 AM
Holy Shit Sam.  That's all I have to say about that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Rendakor on January 25, 2017, 08:10:43 AM
Did my first passenger mission last night; it ended...poorly.

Dude was offering 30k to go to 1 stop about 50 LY away; low payment but I wanted to try it out, plus get the hang of scanning stars and shit so I went for it. I get out to the System, and of course it's on a planet. I fly down to the thing he wanted to see, and crash into the planet a little which causes him to bitch a little. :oh_i_see: As I'm headed back, I realize that my passenger is an illegal; didn't notice that when I took the quest. I dodge an interdiction, and make it back to his home base. As I'm flying through the blue light into the station, I get scanned; my docking permission is immediately revoked and since I'm inside, the station and guards immediately aggro and murder me...which fails the mission.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 25, 2017, 08:20:20 AM
I shouldn't laugh, but, by fuck you've made me giggle.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 26, 2017, 03:59:41 AM
Is there anything that can do the trading role of the Type-9 without being the Type-9 ?

The Type-9 is fucking bollocks, is what I'm saying here.  Utterly, utterly miserable.  But it has 528 tons of fucking cargo, which is a lot of slaves.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 26, 2017, 04:05:37 AM
The Anaconda.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 26, 2017, 05:47:33 AM
Yeah.  And I could juuuuuust get it if I sold my Asp.

But I did that once and the regret and pain spurred me to get the cash to get it again in quick order.  You won't fool me again.     :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 26, 2017, 05:56:04 AM
Is there anything that can do the trading role of the Type-9 without being the Type-9 ?

The Type-9 is fucking bollocks, is what I'm saying here.  Utterly, utterly miserable.  But it has 528 tons of fucking cargo, which is a lot of slaves.

Dude... have we learned nothing from history? None of that is going to end well.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 26, 2017, 06:15:04 AM
Dude, I don't WANT to.  But the invisible hand of the free market FORCES me to.





Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 26, 2017, 09:12:56 AM
Dude, I don't WANT to.  But the invisible hand of the free market FORCES me to.

That's what they all say... and they are more like indentured servants anyway, right?!?  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 26, 2017, 06:20:59 PM
Holy Shit Sam.  That's all I have to say about that.

when i said i didn't want to live on this planet anymore, i meant it


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on January 29, 2017, 06:52:11 PM
I am drawing a really involved comic in which I devolve into Retrowave delusions to escape reality, and as part of it I will be depicting myself playing my favorite 1984 game, Elite, which I am depicting with complete historical accuracy

(http://i.imgur.com/tPLbet1.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 30, 2017, 02:48:49 AM
You're an odd one.

Edited :  Also, speaking of strange, I'm in a bit of an odd place now.  I've completely 'finished' the Trade Grind as I have a nice Anaconda that I'm slowly building up (Currently, docking computer, all Cargo bays and a wee shield, A rated Drive and Distro, but the rest of the ship is gash.  Multicannons and Beams and Pulsies, but I wouldn't take it into combat if I can help it).

However, I started the Imperial grind and got up to Master and got myself 'Allied' with everyone at the old Wu system - at which point I noticed that the money I was being offered for ferrying increased by orders of magnitude.  So, while I CAN technically make a couple of mill running trades in my big warehouse, I'd be daft to because I'm also being offered 10 million to run around about 10 hops.  That's just too good to do anything else.

I am not sure what I'm really saying here, except ferrying seems to be... a bit overpowered at the moment and I'm kinda liking it.

So, upshot is - some advice.  When you can, get a nice ship that can take a couple of passenger bays.  Max (or improve) rep at a station as much as you can.  Then, grab people and shove them in your hold.  Be aware that you can't share missions - so even if you have a 12 person bay, you can't take two 6 man missions.  You would need ANOTHER passenger bay, which is a pain in the arse, frankly, but you can see the point.  Then, profit.  It's probably better than grinding trade monies or shooting bandits.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: rattran on January 30, 2017, 07:42:06 AM
I've been doing the empire grind at Wu/Hip 10716 myself, just running data missions and grabbing any 2mil+ trade stuff, which is all about 100ly/3to4 hops away. Up to baron and 60mil so far. Had to give up on planetary stuff, as my 570 goes into slideshow mode even worse after the last patch when approaching a planet.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 30, 2017, 08:46:01 AM
So, upshot is - some advice.  When you can, get a nice ship that can take a couple of passenger bays.  Max (or improve) rep at a station as much as you can.  Then, grab people and shove them in your hold.  Be aware that you can't share missions - so even if you have a 12 person bay, you can't take two 6 man missions.  You would need ANOTHER passenger bay, which is a pain in the arse, frankly, but you can see the point.  Then, profit.  It's probably better than grinding trade monies or shooting bandits.
I'm sure you can fit passengers into the same cabin from different missions (or am I not understanding what you are saying)?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 30, 2017, 08:57:20 AM
Didn't work for me at all.  I even had two missions where 1 was 2 people and the other was 8 and they wouldn't both go in my 12 bay.

If it's just me being bugged, let me know.

I'd cram those fuckers in like sardines if I could.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 30, 2017, 09:50:25 AM
Didn't work for me at all.  I even had two missions where 1 was 2 people and the other was 8 and they wouldn't both go in my 12 bay.

If it's just me being bugged, let me know.

I'd cram those fuckers in like sardines if I could.


image spam spoilered (a lot of spam that is):


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 30, 2017, 09:54:41 AM
If I was a betting man, I'd conclude that the passengers had to be all of the same type, so no econo with the other types?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 30, 2017, 10:06:27 AM
SARDINES HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 30, 2017, 10:19:31 AM
Confirmed.  You can't mix and match.  Goddammit.

But thanks for correcting me on the stacking. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 30, 2017, 10:34:58 AM
FFS this game needs to hit the PS4 already.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 30, 2017, 03:19:04 PM
My first passenger trip is out to the Nebula Ring. Interesting trying to pick my way out there. Already took some hull damage when my Elite screen lost focus (which happens all the time...I have to click on it, which takes me to desktop, and then choose the Elite app running in the taskbar again. Any thoughts?) and I scorched myself during fuel scooping, so I probably won't even get the full fee. Scenery is cool though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 30, 2017, 03:55:29 PM
And then I log in, get jumped by a pirate in 10+ systems away from any inhabited space, get more hull damage, and my bitchy passenger wants to get dropped off at the nearest station. Head back into the bubble, and miss dropping them off by about 30 seconds. Mission failed. FUCK.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 30, 2017, 03:56:12 PM
Ah Elite, you hurt me becasue you love me, don't you?

So I take my first actual passenger sightseeing mission, and I go out to the planet indicated. I drop at the planet, nothing happens, so I take a screenshot for the ungrateful bastard and do 100 LY to the second location.. and there is no mission marker there. I go wtf and I peruse some websites. After a lot of searching (because apparently this is so obvious to everyone else they haven't actually mentioned this in any websites) I find that you are supposed to scan a beacon before the mission updates. OOOOOOkay. So I fly back to Point I. finally find this beacon after scanning everything in sight around the fucking planet trying to find it, drop out of cruise, and promptly crash into the fucking beacon. I fly ships gud.

So anyway, after this mission is over I look at the other missions. I see a wonderful mission where I have to fly 18,888 LY for some guy to scan a fucking Neutron star, all for 21 mill. Fuck. That. (Until I buy another Asp at least) But I saw another transport mission, see the guy is "demanding" but I say "what the heck." This mission is for 2 mill, what could go wrong.

Well I fly to the first Waypoint, no problem, then fly to the second waypoint 120 LY away, and see its on a planets surface, and I go "Oh fuck" as I have gone into planets a total of once. But I do the entry ok, and I am just about to scan the beacon when the guy goes "I say old chap, would you be a dear and get me 2 units of clothing, what what?" I say Ok, and scan the beacon, become confused when nothing happens. I decide the mission is over, and fly back to base, stop off at an outpost to refuel and pick up some clothing there. And the guy goes "Cheers old chap, tally Ho and Tea and Crumpets to the destination!" and I become confused because the mission map still points at the same place as the planet. I slowly realise that I have to scan the fucking beacon AGAIN! And then when I do The fucker decides, becasue he is so warm and snug in his 2 tons of clothing, he would like a THIRD destination my good man, only 150 fucking LY away, chop chop!

I seem to be saying fucking a lot.

Anyway, slightly less than 4 million for several hours work. Meh. Learned a lot though. Documentation in this game sucks.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 30, 2017, 04:40:15 PM
And THEN I flew all the way back to visit an engineer with my computer banks full of exploration data. And fucking CRASHED because of the goofy planetary gravity. Lost all my data, and went into hock to get my ship back. Basically set fire to the past 2 days of play time. Quite unamused at the moment.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on January 31, 2017, 05:13:20 AM
Are the passenger missions like other mission types where, if you ignore the updates, you can just deliver them to the original destination and still get paid?

I never look at updates when grinding in Wu/HIP because it will take me out of the mission loop.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 31, 2017, 05:14:32 AM
Couple of things that should be clear from the horror stories :

1 - Read the Mission.  Ensure always you know who you're taking and where.  It's all in the Mission brief.  Pay special attention to the guy's legal status and if ships are going to come after you, as they do on some missions.  On some missions you shouldn't take damage and, yes, being burned by the sun counts.  On some missions you WILL have to silently smuggle into a station to avoid scans because they're trying to avoid the paparazzi.  All of this is in the reading - what ELSE is in there is the destinations and distances.  Pay CLOSE attention to them.  Make sure you pick the mission that has a shorter distance, the least amount of stops and the least hassle for your cash.

2 - I'm only gonna say this once, despite my hatred of 'em ;  Get a fucking docking computer.  If the client wants landed, or a swift mission, it saves you so much hassle.  I think DC should be a utility mount, but that's a fight for another day, but either way, get one stuck on.  Why the fuck should you crash on a high gravity planet when one of these cunts can do the landing for you flawlessly.

3 - For missions, it's NEVER to go to a 'planet' or a 'system' ;  there's always a waypoint that you need to scan before they update.  It can be on the planet, or beside the planet or, in one memorable case, a broken bunch of parts that represent the wreck of a famous star ship.  Scan them and make sure you get the 'next waypoint' mail before you leave.  Even if they offer you other inducements, inducements can WAIT.  If they want beer or clothes, you can do this right at the end before you dock for the last time.  Fuck them.   Also, these waypoints will almost always have esoteric names.  You'll get to learn them and they won't show up until you're close to the planet in question.

4 - Multiple cabins of the same type stack.  Different types of passengers, like economy, business and first class (or luxury) don't.  We've proved that one now.

5  Get your rep up.  It's the difference between a 200,000 mission and a ten million mission.

6 - Skip anything further than 300ly.  Fuck that.

I can't think of anything else right now.  Though there's tons and tons of head learned stuff.  Like, don't ever take a mission to see a Black Hole or a Neutron Star.  Well, Neutron ain't that bad, but the thing about Black Holes is they're black.  And the thing about space is....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 31, 2017, 05:15:03 AM
Are the passenger missions like other mission types where, if you ignore the updates, you can just deliver them to the original destination and still get paid?

I never look at updates when grinding in Wu/HIP because it will take me out of the mission loop.

Yes.  But again, read them.  One guy was going to pay 100k for 2 beers.  I shit you not.


Edited to Add ;  This reminds me of a further point - Get some Cargo space.  At least 8 tons.  If the passengers want beer or clothes, you need to store 'em.  If they give material rewards, ditto.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 31, 2017, 11:26:49 AM
There have been times in my life where 100kl for a beer or two would have been a reasonable price.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 31, 2017, 12:21:59 PM
True.   Like when my Anaconda blew up and I had to pay out 9 million.

Sad.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 31, 2017, 01:36:49 PM
And one I just found out about :  be very careful accepting missions to Alpha Centauri.

14 million to ferry some guy and he wants to go there.  It will take OVER AN HOUR to Supercruise to where he wants to go, real time.

Fuck.  That.

First mission I've ever abandoned, methinks.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mandella on January 31, 2017, 04:37:34 PM
And one I just found out about :  be very careful accepting missions to Alpha Centauri.

14 million to ferry some guy and he wants to go there.  It will take OVER AN HOUR to Supercruise to where he wants to go, real time.

Fuck.  That.

First mission I've ever abandoned, methinks.


But, but, the souvenir mugs!

Seriously, there are souvenir mugs for that run. And a dedicated radio station.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 01, 2017, 02:30:23 AM
Yeah, I just didn't have time to do it.  Old Dad Requires Rest.

Also, let's be brutal ;  in that time I could have done 8 other passenger runs at at least a couple of mill each.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on February 01, 2017, 05:14:04 AM
I've been reading good things about grinding Imp doing scan missions in Fehu.

Does any one know if this info is still currently and how it compares to rep grinding in Wu/HIP?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 01, 2017, 05:27:35 AM
If you have a first class cabin can you slum it with economy passengers? They all seem to be red to me for some reason.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 01, 2017, 06:12:47 AM
Yes, you can.  Are you trying to stuff differing classes in there ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 01, 2017, 06:22:04 AM
I probably was. I may not have the rank for the mission either.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on February 01, 2017, 06:24:15 AM
If you have a first class cabin can you slum it with economy passengers? They all seem to be red to me for some reason.

If it's red, I'd assume you are either mixing the classes (BAD!) or perhaps not enough cabin space?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 01, 2017, 06:34:16 AM
Yeah. I need a bigger ship too. There's only 3 cabin space on the thing ata moment. Time to grind.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 01, 2017, 06:34:53 AM
3 Cabin space is going to be less than useless, I would think.

What you driving right now ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 01, 2017, 07:17:32 AM
I was playing around with A diamondback explorer to learn the ropes. I suppose I could try it with my type 7. But I'm going to submit to the collective and buy an Asp now :D

By the way, if a transport mission says to go to a planet, do you need to be able to deploy an SRV to complete it or to you just land close to the outpost and it completes?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 01, 2017, 07:36:19 AM
You'll never have to actually land.  What you usually do is fly until you're close enough to see the beacon, cut speed, scan it and then promptly turn around and fly off.

I thought the Diamondback had bigger mounts than a 4, but I see I was wrong. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 01, 2017, 07:47:18 AM
To be honest, so did I. it may have been hit with the nerfbat.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on February 01, 2017, 11:27:36 AM
Crashed at Martuuk's place with a hold full of Soontil Relics. AGAIN. The gravity on that planet is really fucking powerful, and I am really fucking stupid.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 01, 2017, 12:13:52 PM
Maybe try it with a lighter ship? <-- clueless

Anyway, I got a 6 mill tourist mission right after buying my Asp. Of course, i promptly crashed into the station wall and failed the mission. \O/ Who knew that you should buy better thrusters for your ship??

I found out what happens when you take a passenger to a planet. I didn't know you could land on planetary bases. Thank you docking computer.

So, took an illegal passenger for 2 mill. I drop next to the station, ask for docking, Engage silent running them find I am the wrong side of the station. So I come out of silent and am immediately scanned. I Yelp, drop chaff and bolt out of the no fire zone.

Ok I hear people say "hat the hell is silent running. Basically it slams your heat vents shut, drops your shield and puts your thrusters into a low power setting, so you cant be picked up on sensors as easily, and if they do it takes a long time to scan you. The downside is that you don't vent any heat, so your heat builds up, and it can damage your ship and even blow you up if you let it get too high.

So I remember some old tricks, and since my docking timer was running I coast around to the front at 11 kms. then line up with the airlock, Hit full thrust and boost, then hit silent running. I coast into the door manoeuvring, and then realise the brakes weren't working when I tried to slow down at the door  :ye_gods:  but I go in, drop silent running when I'm inside and safe with the heat alarms blaring in my ear. At least I didn't pancake into the wall this time.  :why_so_serious:

So, far this passenger stuff is fun.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on February 01, 2017, 02:32:34 PM
Crashed at Martuuk's place with a hold full of Soontil Relics. AGAIN. The gravity on that planet is really fucking powerful, and I am really fucking stupid.

What ship and what grade thrusters?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on February 01, 2017, 03:03:13 PM
Crashed at Martuuk's place with a hold full of Soontil Relics. AGAIN. The gravity on that planet is really fucking powerful, and I am really fucking stupid.

What ship and what grade thrusters?
He needs to turn assist off and point the ass end of his ship towards the surface of the planet while using the other thrusters for lateral movements, paying attention to altitude the whole time. Pop out his landing gear, feather right at the end and go horizontal instead of vertical in the last second. Also he should have really good shields.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on February 01, 2017, 03:23:16 PM
He needs to turn assist off and point the ass end of his ship towards the surface of the planet while using the other thrusters for lateral movements, paying attention to altitude the whole time. Pop out his landing gear, feather right at the end and go horizontal instead of vertical in the last second. Also he should have really good shields.


 :ye_gods:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 02, 2017, 06:45:11 AM
GET A FUCKING DOCKING COMPUTER.

 :why_so_serious: :why_so_serious: :why_so_serious: :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 02, 2017, 09:54:47 AM
Just got an 8800 LY mission to go scan a nebula for 42 million. I figured with the exploration data money I would pretty much have enough for a Python... so yeah I'm off to deep space. There;s a 3 week time limit so I recon I'll be there and back by then, assuming I survive.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on February 02, 2017, 10:01:16 AM
Just got an 8800 LY mission to go scan a nebula for 42 million. I figured with the exploration data money I would pretty much have enough for a Python... so yeah I'm off to deep space. There;s a 3 week time limit so I recon I'll be there and back by then, assuming I survive.

Poopsock it and you'll be done by Saturday.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 02, 2017, 10:35:03 AM
Damn you gamer genes *props open eyes with matchsticks*


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on February 02, 2017, 10:37:10 AM
Remember to install an AFM before you go since you are bound to get some damage just from the sheer boredom of jumping hundreds of times (especially if your attention slacks jumping into a dual neutron star...  :uhrr: )


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 02, 2017, 11:17:32 AM
Just got an 8800 LY mission to go scan a nebula for 42 million. I figured with the exploration data money I would pretty much have enough for a Python... so yeah I'm off to deep space. There;s a 3 week time limit so I recon I'll be there and back by then, assuming I survive.

This will not end well.   :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on February 02, 2017, 11:42:04 AM
Just got an 8800 LY mission to go scan a nebula for 42 million. I figured with the exploration data money I would pretty much have enough for a Python... so yeah I'm off to deep space. There;s a 3 week time limit so I recon I'll be there and back by then, assuming I survive.

This will not end well.   :why_so_serious:

And I am looking forward to reading about it.    :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 02, 2017, 06:17:50 PM
The fact that I don't have an AFM is a good start.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 03, 2017, 01:27:42 AM
I'm going to have to hit combat in a big way shortly.  Any guides or tips from people ?

I don't mean just pew pewing the occasional pirate, I mean monstering into it in order to rank up.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 03, 2017, 04:15:59 AM
What do you mean, like fighting tips or where to find pew pew? Conflict zones will give you all the pew you can handle, and you can get away with drifting with the police in high RES sites, as long as you hit the bad guy you will get credit for the kill. As for combat itself, master transferring power. Engines to make you more agile, dropping speed to 50% will make you turn faster, power to shields reduces the actual damage your shields take so they can last longer under fire, and weapons make weapons go.

Sooo... my drift into deep space. After hours of jumping this morning I got to around 2.5k LY of the target... and then I found I was running out of stars I could reach. Turns out the nebula or black hole or whatever it is, is in a huge area of empty space. I would guess you would need some seriously modified jump engines to get to it, or there is some other trick that I don't know. So I've turned around and am heading back to base and I'm going to boot the client out the airlock. Still, I'll make some coin off the exploration data and my ranking will shoot up, assuming I make it back in one piece. My most damaged system is my docking computer at 82%  :why_so_serious:  Only 4.7k LY to go!  :drill:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 03, 2017, 04:39:25 AM
There's also quite a few areas of space dubbed 'badlands' which are large stretches of stars that cannot be scooped.  Another thing you need to worry about on long trips.  The Galaxy map will help you there if you filter it all.

As to my post, no, I know where to find a fight and how to actually fight - what I'm more interested in are builds and places where people have found great success in fighting lots of baddies for periods of time to increase ranks.

This may be an empty plea, of course.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on February 03, 2017, 04:55:34 AM
There's also quite a few areas of space dubbed 'badlands' which are large stretches of stars that cannot be scooped.  Another thing you need to worry about on long trips.  The Galaxy map will help you there if you filter it all.

As to my post, no, I know where to find a fight and how to actually fight - what I'm more interested in are builds and places where people have found great success in fighting lots of baddies for periods of time to increase ranks.

This may be an empty plea, of course.


Since you guys got me thinking about this game, I've been scoping out youtube vids about all the aspects of the game. As to fighting, Vulture in a High Intensity resource area seems to be the sweet spot. Better yet if you can find a medium sec system with one - this way you can poach kills off of police vehicles. Seems dual large pulse lasers, gimballed is the flavor of the month. Anything bigger than yourself, target the subsystem power plant to cut the TTK ~50%. Loadouts I have seen have all been similar, A rated shields, A rated thruster, A rated power plant, and the best large pulse lasers -D rated rest of the stuff to save weight. Sticking to higher sec systems they also go with kill warrant scanner and chaff just in case. Soloing lower sec, people run with shield cells and heat sinks along with military hulls and such.

And from everything I read, boosting pips to system only impacts the shield regen time, not overall toughness. Hence the need for shield cell banks.


Oh and for long range stuff, I saw a few videos on how you can boost using neutron star exhaust to jump 200+ LY. Might help?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 03, 2017, 06:36:02 AM
Which reminds me; if you have reagents, you can also inject them into your drive from the console to get a LY Boost.

I did that a couple of times.  It's mental.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on February 03, 2017, 08:42:25 AM
What? I don't even know what a reagent is!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 03, 2017, 10:23:20 AM
Go to your Cargo screen on the right hand side.  Now scroll down to 'Synthesis.'

You'll see some options there you probably didn't know about.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on February 03, 2017, 12:23:46 PM
Vulture + High RES= cash and faction bumps. Just don't start any fights with ships that can kick your ass (or be ready to get the fuck out of Dodge if the cops are slow to help). I made $900k in about 15 minutes last night.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 03, 2017, 12:34:56 PM
What's yer vulture build ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on February 03, 2017, 02:03:11 PM
What's yer vulture build ?


A grade power plant, A grade thrusters, biggest pulse lasers you can find, and a scarf and goggles.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 03, 2017, 02:22:45 PM
If you are low on power, remember you can set certain things to priority 3 on the module screen. that means they will be the first things to be turned off when the power spikes i.e. when you deploy weapons. Stuff like the Frame shift drive, cargo hatch etc can be set like that with no real combat penalty. Also a class B shied plus a shield booster will result in more shield overall for less power.

Anyway, got back safely. I even docked using my fried Docking computer with no troubles. Made about 4 and a half mill with the exploration data, "discovered" about 25 systems, and Explorer rank went from pathfinder 30% to 90%. I might go round scanning planets after this to get that flipped up to the next rank.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on February 03, 2017, 06:24:01 PM
What's yer vulture build ?


A grade power plant, A grade thrusters, biggest pulse lasers you can find, and a scarf and goggles.

This, except I have a multicannon and a pulse laser atm as an experiment. Seems to work ok.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on February 04, 2017, 07:25:40 PM
Every once in a while HIP 10716/Wu Guinagi enter in a civil war.  For those that catassed for Empire rank doing the courier missions, means you are pretty much allied with all the factions.

I did the whole switching between open->private and picked up 10, 6-8mil+ massacre missions from an Empire faction, which means:

1) You grind pilot rank
2) You earn a ton of cash - each kill also nets a combat bond
3) The kills overlap among all the missions - so each kill applies to all 10 missions
4) When you finish you get empire rank + influence

Went up a total of 86 million after about 2 hours.  Not too bad.

The thing with conflict zones is that they can switch in a hurry:  if the faction you are going against gains the upper hand, you'd better be ready to get the fuck outta dodge or you will get gang raped by 6+ ships at the same time.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on February 05, 2017, 09:16:42 PM
I usually take a ton of missions to kill dozens of bad guys and the war ends 10 minutes later.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 06, 2017, 05:44:09 AM
I did that.  Pissed me off fucking royally.

What's worse is even if you find ships that are wanted and belonging to the faction in question, it doesn't up the mission counter.  You seem to need to get them in the warzones.

Which blows.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on February 06, 2017, 07:12:24 AM
Regarding combat Reddit started buzzing about 17 Draconis entering war on Friday (apparently wars tend to last 3 days) and how you can make a mint stacking massacre missions there

I didn't go myself because it transpired that the factions are both Federal so you need to have a decent Fed rank to get offered the [high paying] missions and that it was a very long way to go to not get offered the right missions (plus there was the small matter of my Asp not being up to the combat apparently and I dont have, and cant yet afford, a dedicated combat ship to move out thee once I arrived)

There is war in Wu/HIP quite regularly since I've been there (~3 weeks now) but it always seems to be between the non-empire factions - no idea if that makes a difference?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on February 06, 2017, 08:32:50 AM
There is war in Wu/HIP quite regularly since I've been there (~3 weeks now) but it always seems to be between the non-empire factions - no idea if that makes a difference?

I may be wrong, but the payouts seemed tied to a) faction influence, and b) combat rank.  In other words, if you are allied with the faction, you will get access to the high paying missions.  I think you can still make great cash, but turning in the missions won't increase Empire rank (obviously).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 06, 2017, 10:08:57 AM
It says there's a war right now and will give you missions, but no conflict zones.

It's lame.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Teleku on February 06, 2017, 10:31:18 AM
War never changes.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on February 07, 2017, 07:36:50 AM
It says there's a war right now and will give you missions, but no conflict zones.

It's lame.


This seems to have changed recently.  Systems for me show up as 'unexplored' even if I've been there many times - even between logging in and out.  And conflict zones only seem to show up if you are within something like 500Ls to 1000Ls of them, which means you need to go from planet to planet in the system until they pop up.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 07, 2017, 08:02:46 AM
Yeah, and that'd be valid if I didn't go to the nav beacon, scanned it and it specifically said 'sorry, dude, no bad hombres, you need to get it old school'.

I may be paraphrasing.

If you're saying that despite that message I still have to go flying around the system, then I'm in seven degrees of Fuck That, especially as I warped to another Civil War 20 ly out and it was advertisting the fuckery for me to dive into.

Wu Gu is fucked is what I'm saying.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on February 07, 2017, 08:29:50 AM
Which faction do you need to fight?

HIP 10716 has a ton of conflict zones around the outermost planet (3000Ls from where the nav beacon is).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 07, 2017, 10:29:22 AM
If you want it to stay Imperial, then fight the Federation SCUM. If you want to to go Fed then think of all the innocent slaves you will be betraying into the horrors of decedent freedom.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 08, 2017, 05:06:01 AM
Regarding shields, here where I read that putting pips into shields strenghtens them

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Shield

Quote
Increasing System pips will increase the strength of the ship's shields. It is thus advisable to switch to 4 pips just before taking damage to maximize the shield's durability. Currently pips do not appear to increase the recharge or reactivation rate of shields, given that your System still has available energy for the recharge process to consume.[1]

The [1] leads to http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/2r813l/shield_classrating_testing_results/ (http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/2r813l/shield_classrating_testing_results/)

So, make of that what you will.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on February 08, 2017, 06:16:44 AM
Regarding shields, here where I read that putting pips into shields strenghtens them

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Shield

Quote
Increasing System pips will increase the strength of the ship's shields. It is thus advisable to switch to 4 pips just before taking damage to maximize the shield's durability. Currently pips do not appear to increase the recharge or reactivation rate of shields, given that your System still has available energy for the recharge process to consume.[1]

The [1] leads to http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/2r813l/shield_classrating_testing_results/ (http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/2r813l/shield_classrating_testing_results/)

So, make of that what you will.

Ahh good stuff. I must have read some bad info. Thanks much for this.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 08, 2017, 11:10:23 AM
Interesting chart ;  a Python with a 6A shield is the strongest you can get ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 08, 2017, 02:50:17 PM
Python does not have any 7 class optional internals anyway, but ya.

(Only reason I know that is that I bought one today.)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on February 08, 2017, 08:43:36 PM
that shield info appears really, really old. I think pips might work different now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 09, 2017, 01:48:55 AM
I'd be interested in up to date stuff.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 09, 2017, 06:15:50 AM
Well in the reddit thread they said that the devs saw it and they said they wanted it to be a linear strengthening rather than the exponential curve people observed. Anyway my own experience is that my shields are significantly stronger with 4 pips than 1.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on February 09, 2017, 07:40:41 AM
Shields definitely recharge faster with 4 pips, and recover faster once they are down if there are more pips.  So at least that information appears incorrect in the article above (or was once correct, and then the system was changed).

I haven't personally noticed that the shields stay up longer with more pips, but usually when the shields are being hammered I am worrying about other things.  :uhrr:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 09, 2017, 01:18:46 PM
In other news, A Python with 2 med and 1 small mining lasers completely rapes asteroids.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 09, 2017, 01:32:24 PM
Sure.  Ok.

Whatever gets you off !


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 09, 2017, 01:47:09 PM
The asteroids came onto me!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 09, 2017, 01:53:54 PM
Phrasing !


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on February 09, 2017, 04:54:28 PM
I just ordered one of these to replace my super cheap HOTAS.

Thrustmaster T.16000M FCS HOTAS Controller (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KCHPRXA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

As soon as it gets delivered, I am looking forward to diving back into this game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 09, 2017, 05:43:50 PM
Nice joystick! I use one of these. http://gaming.logitech.com/en-roeu/product/extreme-3d-pro-joystick


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 10, 2017, 06:20:11 AM
My Planets, Bitches.

(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/84843180087848903/6F4B4511CB8ACCA6DDD9A7F340996D8C6A30E28E/)

Not the first Icy Body I've ever discovered.

...

Wait, that doesn't sound right.


(Got the whole top row and going back for the rest of the system.)



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 11, 2017, 11:35:34 PM
Yeah, I have a few systems I really should fill up with my name. I did grab a few planets the other day.

Anyway, I'm pissed off, again. I went to a system called Sothis, which I read on Reddit was good for getting up Federation rank (I decided I really like the look of the corvette.) But it and its Partner CEOS has been wrecked by what I have since found out is called "UA bombing." That basically is griefing. Ceos had a black market, which allowed some people to go in and load in Unknown artifacts into it. Seemingly if you pot too many Unknown artifacts into a station the whole thing gets wrecked. So since COES was bieng used as a good way to farm up rank in def and generate cash, it was wrecked.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/4ten9y/what_is_ua_bombing/

But also I picked up a passenger mission in Ceos, and then the game lost connection, and when I got back, the mission was not on my list, but the passengers are still in my Asps cabin. This basically makes my asp more or less useless, as I cant remove the cabin with people inside it. So I guess I'll have to sell the Asp and buy another one. Guess what station used to sell asps before it was wrecked by UA bombing?

And Sothis is 500 light years out in the middle of nowhere, so I can t just fly back and get another Asp. Well I could, but its a pain in the Asp to go there and back. Anyway the Sothis and Ceos place is a good way to grind boon data delivery and other similar missions, as they are constantly bieng generated between Sothis and Ceos which are 1 jump apart, so I might stick around there for a bit just to farm easy cash and standings. There is only 1 Fed aligned faction there so its not terrific for Fed faction grinding.

Grumble.

*edit* it gets better. It seems I cant even buy a new ship as I cant put a ship into storage with passangers aboard. So off to the nearest conflict zone I go, to die a heroic death. Woohoo!!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on February 12, 2017, 02:02:39 AM
You can always self-destruct to make it clear to those passangers that it was their fault...  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on February 13, 2017, 07:51:12 AM
My Planets, Bitches.

(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/84843180087848903/6F4B4511CB8ACCA6DDD9A7F340996D8C6A30E28E/)

Not the first Icy Body I've ever discovered.

...

Wait, that doesn't sound right.


(Got the whole top row and going back for the rest of the system.)



Very cool! How far out did you go?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 13, 2017, 08:09:14 AM
That's not far at all and there were quite a few blank systems.

I pointed my nose towards the Coalsack Nebula and headed for God's Eye.  This was almost in the middle of it, so what's that ?  Over 300ly ?  Not that far away at all.

As I said, I haven't been back yet, so those other two rows of planets are up for grabs.  Make it an F13 System.


Which reminds me, when are we going to put in our application for the F13 Faction ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 22, 2017, 12:05:54 PM
So, I decided to try and buff my exploration a bit as I realised I'm actually 2 ranks down from elite in exploration. How the hell that happened I dunno but anyway...

So I looked around for a decent guide and ran across this http://www.alpha-orbital.com/news/the-ultimate-guide-to-elite-dangerous-exploration It has a few setup and so I set up an Asp for 34 LY jump range. Off I went. It recommends heading for Clookie UO-Z D13-22. That's a start of a large field of Neutron stars, at least 1000 LY around it, that will generate lots of cash if you scan them and get back to a station.

On the way I was half dead from the tedium. So More reading and I ran across mention of Jacques station. WTF is Jacques station? I cried. So more research. Yes its a full station in the deep black with all services and whatnot, in the system of Colonia.

https://eddb.io/station/42041

And looking at the factions there I found that there are other stations that they are running

https://eddb.io/faction/75116

There is a listing of several different systems to BM here. They all have a planetary base that you can dock to and sell exploration data, and they have RES locations in the system as well, so there is opportunities for mining and combat. The snag is that they don't have outfitting services there so you would have to haul your mining or combat ship out there as is, or summon it with credits after flying out in an exploration ship.

Anyway they basically give you a spot to dump your exploration data and repair and reload yourself out in the deep black. If you BM the system you will realise they give you a line of systems to bounce along about 3000-4000 LY apart on the way to Colonia, or you can use them as a hopping off point for Sag-A.

I'm currently heading for the big Neutron Star cluster from the Gru Hypue KS-T d3-31 station, and I'm running across Neutron, White Dwarf. and Black Hole Clusters that no-one has found before. Its tedious as hell though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on February 22, 2017, 12:26:51 PM
I decided to make my Cutter into a Flying Fortress and equipped it with long-range modded multi-cannons (and an efficient beam laser into the huge hardpoint). It's kind of fun to see all 6 multi-cannons spread streams of death when you set them on the fire-at-will mode.  :grin:

Also the fighter seems pretty good when the npc pilot gains some experience and isn't shred to pieces in the cross-fire (had it take on an npc anaconda and win without any help since the conda seemed to be fitted with fixed weapons and was unable to get the fighter in sights)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 22, 2017, 04:52:29 PM
I've heard people say that Dropping fighters in a combat zone is the best way to instantly lose fighters.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on February 22, 2017, 06:47:01 PM
I have two different fighter types in my bay. One: Imp Fighter with fixed high-DPS weapon for taking out enemy fatties. Two: Imp Fighter with high track weapons for sniping enemy fighters.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on February 26, 2017, 07:19:44 AM
Decided to take a trip to Colonia and actually managed to get to the first outpost (https://www.edsm.net/en/system/id/6100051/name/Blu+Thua+AI-A+c14-10) without too much trouble (except typoing Blu Thua Al-A as Blu Thua AL-A and so taking a 1000+ly sidetrip)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 26, 2017, 07:44:06 AM
Well, you can copy the name on one window and then paste it into the search window to find the system.

Anyway, here is the list for easy reference

Blu Thua AI-A c14-10

Lagoon Sector NI-S b4-10

Eagle Sector IR-W d1-117

Skaudai CH-B d14-34

Gru Hypue KS-T d3-31

Boewnst KS-S c20-959


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on February 26, 2017, 09:24:14 AM
I used a tablet to look up the outposts while in-game so managed to typo the first one. Luckily the rest seem to be correct judging by where they are on the galaxy map  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on February 27, 2017, 08:27:38 AM
Managed to get to the outpost on Skaudai and discovered a nice planet on the way there.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on February 27, 2017, 09:09:07 AM
That must have been a cash winner.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on February 27, 2017, 10:17:58 PM
Decided to take a trip to Colonia and actually managed to get to the first outpost (https://www.edsm.net/en/system/id/6100051/name/Blu+Thua+AI-A+c14-10) without too much trouble (except typoing Blu Thua Al-A as Blu Thua AL-A and so taking a 1000+ly sidetrip)

common rookie mistake. haven't we all Blu Thua AL-A'd shit at least once?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 28, 2017, 08:09:22 PM
I know sometimes I FAS DO RUH instead of FUS DO RAH.

I found this speadsheet that lists what you get for scanning an object and what they look like. Very handy.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17fKT0APR88qtIzmdA1JTDA9gxInjJP8qtJRdXQr-BRA/edit?pli=1#gid=1568606424


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on March 01, 2017, 09:42:35 AM
Interesting read on how the shield boosters etc will (probably) work after 2.3: What lies beneath Shield Health (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/333297-What-lies-beneath-Shield-Health)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on March 01, 2017, 10:16:08 PM
Interesting read on how the shield boosters etc will (probably) work after 2.3: What lies beneath Shield Health (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/333297-What-lies-beneath-Shield-Health)

I saw this coming but I'm still gonna really miss having an indefatigable 3k+ prismatic shield wall


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on March 02, 2017, 06:56:49 AM
Made it to Colonia so I guess it's time to consider the trip back home (maybe swing by the Conflux for a look at the Dynasty Outpost)  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on March 02, 2017, 07:49:59 AM
I'm truly confused why people want to go there.

What's the draw ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on March 02, 2017, 10:45:41 AM
I'm truly confused why people want to go there.

What's the draw ?


Because it's there?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on March 02, 2017, 07:55:55 PM
That's pretty much it. Sagittarius A* and the Great Annihilator are basically just 2 big Black holes, but people still want to see them.

By the way, I suspect in my tin foil hat moments that the Conflux is basically just Frontier making shit up to string players along. If there was anything to it other than random stuff people would have figured out by now. But if there really is nothing they can beat the Autistic hive mind of Gaming.

Not that I'm faulting them for it. It give people gool things to look at, and keeps them playing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 05, 2017, 10:58:43 PM
A great screenshot collection 1 (https://imgur.com/gallery/Wg99U#fmsDAMa)
A great screenshot collection 2 (https://imgur.com/a/qqrfL)

In other news, I finally found some time to sink into Elite: Dangerous's learning curve and properly play it.

Followed a suggestion to sell the noob cargo hold, install a fuel scoop, and use it to immediately get out of Dodge and go to a high-tech system. Found the nearest high-tech system, Yembo, 13 jumps away. Was basically familiar with fuel scooping from the 1984 game, and once I got my head around flying properly, I was underway.

Scooping after the 12th jump, my ship started heating up crazy fast. I couldn't figure out why. I couldn't seem to stop heating up, no matter how hard I tried to fly away from the sun. My only way out was to perform the 13th jump. Frame shift drive charging... charging... charging... I finally jump with a heat level over 300%.

Appear in the 13th system, fly away from the sun, cool down, cool down... too late, too hot, my ship explodes! And I am all the way back at the starting system. Ah yes, I remember this from the 1980s... dock to save. Welcome back to Elite!

Made it back to system #12 and landed before bed. A booming mining and industrial system, Yu Di Yi. The spaceport, Aksyonov Orbital, was like nothing I'd seen so far... boom time, dozens of ships everywhere, big cargo vessels going in and out. The landing control guy spoke. He sounded all sarcastic and Russian. Hooked. If I had the time.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on March 06, 2017, 01:18:08 AM
What type of sun was it ?  Bear in mind some of them, especially the new Neutron ones and shit, are just large flamey balls of death that you really, really need to stay away from.

Also, the Frame Shift Drive throws the heat up by huge amounts, so it's not an optimal escape plan.   By the sounds of it, you found the shortcut key to silent running though.  Which is kinda funny.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on March 06, 2017, 03:46:00 AM
You can only scoop fuel from certain types of stars (http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Fuel_Scoop). The longer you scoop the more your ship will heat up (as designated on the bar graph on the left side of your radar). Heat levels will also show up on your HUD if the fuel scoop is active. You should probably stop scooping when heat levels reach about 80% so that you have still time to get some distance between your ship and the star in order for your ship to cool off. Basically if you're reasonably close to a star and you don't get the "Fule Scoop activated" announcement you probably can't get fuel from that particular type of star.

Non-scoopable stars usually generate ridiculous amounts of heat and the best recommendation is to get the hell out of dodge as soon as possible.

Also don't drop from "Supercruise" mode. Fuel scooping only works in Supercruise (the mode activated by pressing 'J' while you're in a System.)

Your "Frame Shift Drive" also generates lots of heat when you jump to another system so make sure you've cooled off before. I'd also recommend heat sink launchers as an upgrade for those "Oh Shit it's getting hot quickly" moments.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on March 06, 2017, 04:17:32 AM
If you hit the FSD while a star is red in your radar you will suck up massive amounts of heat. you can hit the jump key again to cancel it and cool down if you screw up.

Bigger stars have bigger safe ranges.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on March 06, 2017, 05:16:36 AM
KGB FOAM is the memory shortcut I like for scoopable stars.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on March 06, 2017, 05:22:57 AM
So I've _almost_ finished the grind to Cutter (30-odd% Marquis) and have started to think about how I'm going to bankroll the Cutter hull purchase and fitting (I've got 150mil liquid and my hardly-fitted Python currently). I don't have any aspirations with the Cutter out of the gate other than being able to bulk trade for cash while being able to escape anything that can kill me.

Given how the ED Reddit goes on about stacking massacre missions when Draconis goes to war I figured I'd try it with the war Wu/HIP sees quite frequently (with the added bonus of getting the combat bonds for that Ishmaal(sp?) engineer guy) but I've not got a clue what ship to use or how tanky it needs to be for either the low or high combat zones.

I've got a couple of ideas but wondered if people had any input?

Option 1: Stick with the Python - I have 5A Prismatic, 3x class 1 beams (no mods) and 2x class 2 multi cannons (got The Blaster to G5 but don't have the materials to get corrosive on either yet) but otherwise it's stock - hope not to lose it often

Option 2: [Near] Max out something cheap like a Cobra/Viper and don't worry about losing it

Option 3 - Get somethng in between 1 & 2 cost wise (Clipper/Vulture?)

Or just builk trade in the stock Cutter......


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on March 06, 2017, 07:51:03 AM
I've had good luck with my decked out Vulture in Wu/HIP combat zones.  I switched to the 5C prismatic shields because 5A takes too long to charge.  You can swoop in, kill 1 or 2, then get out to the edge of the conflict and rinse and repeat.

One thing I've noticed is that sometimes large capital ships still jump in to low intensity zones.  I was trying to escape last night and an elite python jumped in and took out the last of my shields, then destroyed my thrusters in 2 hits.  I was fortunate to be able to go on momentum and float out of the zone after about 5 minutes.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on March 06, 2017, 08:59:11 AM
I found my Python could pretty much handle anything when decked out for combat.

I hated the Vulture. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on March 06, 2017, 09:24:22 AM
Noticed that I had forgotten to claim credits for abandoned settlement location package (as I was checking to see if I had killed enough enemies for powerplay). Luckily didn't manage to die before claiming it.  :awesome_for_real:



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on March 06, 2017, 05:00:51 PM
I don't know what it is about the Vulture but I don't like it. I feel more comfortable flying my ASP even in dogfghts in hires zones. Even though the Vulture should be more cmbat capable.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on March 06, 2017, 05:35:52 PM
My first advice to someone who doesn't like the flight profile of the vulture is to get a fuckin' Courier and boost-strafe people at high speed.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: rattran on March 06, 2017, 06:43:57 PM
I liked the Vulture, except every time my shields dropped my windshield disappeared. Sometimes even before the shields dropped. It was like driving a Ford Ranger in space.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on March 06, 2017, 07:42:12 PM
I liked the Vulture, except every time my shields dropped my windshield disappeared. Sometimes even before the shields dropped. It was like driving a Ford Ranger in space.
It needs a beefy AFMU, at the very least.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on March 06, 2017, 08:36:04 PM
I will need to figure out what turrets are best for multicrew gunnery. I'm assuming potentially that it would be beam turrets with Efficient, but I do not know.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on March 07, 2017, 03:53:43 AM
My experience with a Vulture summed up: Go to a resource extraction site (low). Engage a 'mostly harmless' Eagle pilot in a wing. Constantly battle against overheating and the ridiculous low power budget of the Type 4 power plant. Lose the canopy halfway through. Manage to lose shields and a significant portion of the hull in the process.

Granted I'm not a very good pilot and there are people that absolutely love the Vulture and they seem like thzey can handle it. It's not for me though. I actually manage better in my Asp Explorer kitted out for exploration and mission running than I do in a Vulture.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on March 07, 2017, 07:01:57 AM
So glad I'm not the only one then.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on March 07, 2017, 07:10:59 AM
I'm also well into the not very good pilot camp and instead I cheese it with a turret-cutter which I more or less park into the CZ and let the turrets (and npc fighter) to do most of the fighting.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on March 07, 2017, 08:00:43 AM
Only drawback I have found with the Vulture is the limited power it has. Even turning off non-essentials limits your weapons.. and while they are nice large hardpoints, you only get two and still are fighting to figure out how to put anything more than mini-cannons or the old reliable pulse lasers. Slotting a class A shield is pretty much required given they made the cockpit canopy out of plate glass instead of transparent aluminum. Once you hit that last ring, you best start dumping power to engines to boost away or be close enough to finishing off your prey item or else. Once that last ring is gone, your only chance is show them your ass and hope they don't blow your drives on the way out.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on March 07, 2017, 09:20:21 AM
You actually get more shield/power by using a B shield and a shield booster or 2. Used to anyway.

I have to admit I'm not sold on the Vulture. I had more fun with an Imp Courier.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on March 07, 2017, 09:39:33 AM
You actually get more shield/power by using a B shield and a shield booster or 2. Used to anyway.

I have top admit I'm not sold on the Vulture. I had more fun with an Imp Courier.

You do, but at the cost of less heat efficiency and greater weight. Doesn't take that much off the thrusters, but it is noticeable.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on March 07, 2017, 12:52:44 PM
I went ahead and engineered up a Vulture for old time's sake (I used one all the way up to being able to afford a Clipper) and found that some straightforward upgrades do a lot to bypass the normal limitations of the frame.

For an unengineered Vulture, I would give it twin large pulse lasers or twin large autocannons, or 1 autocannon / 1 beam, and a biweave shield. I would also still of course have an AFMU on it. The absolute first priority for engineering is overcharging the powerplant so you can juice up the engines.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on March 08, 2017, 01:35:02 AM
I always forget that engineers now exist in the game...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on March 08, 2017, 08:32:50 AM
I've never seen any of the engineers information in-game.  Apparently, Horizons isn't available for Mac clients?  Or am I just missing something obvious?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on March 08, 2017, 08:57:50 AM
Engineers are a pain in the dick.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on March 08, 2017, 03:49:25 PM
I still don't have a clue what engineers are about. Every-time I look for info about them I just run into a whole mess of BS, and just leave with a big feeling of not bothering.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on March 10, 2017, 05:31:02 PM
Trouble. BIG trouble:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEQTj8dTOC0


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on March 10, 2017, 06:11:37 PM
Fuck off... Come on PS4 release.... my body is ready.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on March 10, 2017, 06:33:12 PM
I still don't have a clue what engineers are about. Every-time I look for info about them I just run into a whole mess of BS, and just leave with a big feeling of not bothering.

http://docs.google.com/document/d/14F5pbks7dpEOGaVlhE8b-i2hJg2ufj31wuaMq8Ro-iw/edit

Follow this guide, and if you get to the point where you want to do base runs in an SRV for data, let me know.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Lucas on March 11, 2017, 01:58:49 AM
Soo, what's all your commander names in-game so that I can add you to the friends list?  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on March 11, 2017, 03:48:21 AM
Pennilenko


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on March 11, 2017, 03:56:33 AM
Satael


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on March 11, 2017, 04:58:11 AM
Interview with David Braben - PAX East 2017 - Elite Dangerous (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTtiGxJIFyM&)

Braben makes the "future story" of ED sound really interesting (but mentions no new game mechanics which somewhat dampens my expectations).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on March 11, 2017, 07:15:58 AM
Soo, what's all your commander names in-game so that I can add you to the friends list?  :awesome_for_real:

Sugo.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on March 11, 2017, 11:57:07 AM
Suranis.

Finally arrived at Colonia. All told I have made about 30 million during the flight, making exploration the worst way to make money by far. Granted I was actually scanning high value planets in the last 4000 LY or so, having finally known what to lonk for, but it took aaaages. I'm now at 5% Pioneer and frankly I'm probably going to sell my Asp, buy a sidewinder and self destruct back to the bubble. nI have my name on a fair amount of planets and stars though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: rattran on March 11, 2017, 07:35:12 PM
Rattran.

I'll hopefully have better intarwebs soon and be back pewpewing at Hip and Wu.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on March 13, 2017, 06:05:32 AM
CMDR Warlock


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 14, 2017, 07:48:28 PM
I just made it to a Cobra Mk III for the first time since 1986, so I came here to post something.

My path from 1000 to 400,000 credits was:
- Own the game since 2015, but barely play it. Buy a better PC in 2017, and finally give it a real try. Quickly get hooked like I was on EverQuest 1 and the original Elite.
- Follow a tip to install a fuel scoop and do a long series of jumps away from my starting system to a high-tech system before doing anything real (this made me realise I could travel a long way via short jumps and a scoop).
- Find my own back-and-forth trading routes for my Sidewinder's 6 cargo slots.
- Upgrade the Sidewinder to D-class equipment (lightweight = bigger jumps).
- Follow a tip to do a community goal if possible, as the minimum rewards are big for a newbie - I did a 30-hop journey to qualify me for a 200,000 community goal reward that will arrive in a few days.
- Start out trading again from the next system to the community goal system, and keep moving till I find a good back-and-forth route.
- Accidentally discover a "buy this and deliver it" mission 7 jumps away to earn 150k (and avoid interdiction).
- Accidentally discover a "buy this and deliver it" mission 1 jump away to earn $350k (and avoid interdiction - I was already landing inside the Coriolis station when they warned me that someone was being sent to hunt me).

So basically the last two steps got me there, and I've got another 200k coming from the community goal that I don't actually need now. I'm happy I chose my own adventure rather than following any defined set of moves. It's how you learn the game.

Then again, I've yet to try combat.

What type of sun was it ?  Bear in mind some of them, especially the new Neutron ones and shit, are just large flamey balls of death that you really, really need to stay away from.

Also, the Frame Shift Drive throws the heat up by huge amounts, so it's not an optimal escape plan.   By the sounds of it, you found the shortcut key to silent running though.  Which is kinda funny.

I was basically just clueless.... flying too fast around a sun, not realising I could stop and still be scooping, spinning uncontrollably while trying to fly forward, and actually not moving away from the sun. It was a long time before I actually found a sun that I couldn't scoop (seen them all now).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on March 15, 2017, 01:49:09 AM
The MK III is probably one of the best ships in the game. Great cargo capacity for its size and a good variety of internal compartments.

If only I liked flying it. This is a weird pet peeve but I don't like that the seating position is on the left. I've never driven a car in my life and it irritates me that everything feels off because the seating Position is left of center. That's why I fancy the Asp more.

If you are not me though the Cobra MK III is a great ship with lots of potential for cargo hauling, exploration or combat.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on March 15, 2017, 06:28:24 AM
I really, really, really wanted the other Cobra and it fucks me off that only special people get it.  And you can't even get it for cash now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on March 15, 2017, 07:16:53 AM
I really, really, really wanted the other Cobra and it fucks me off that only special people get it.  And you can't even get it for cash now.


It's not actually that great apparently (I'm a special-person but haven't owned one yet) as it's more of a side-grade than an upgrade and slower than a III which is the main drawback/criticism, although I understand they hull tank very well.

I also really wanted it and had meant to move to one after my III but the slower speed put me off.

I'll probably go back and fit one to mess about in once I've stopped doing the important bits of my Cutter


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on March 16, 2017, 02:30:03 AM
Surely if you have cutter money, it's a mere 1 trade to get the Cobra you want.  This is something I found quite head hurting when I got both my Anaconda and my Python ;  suddenly ships that took me ages before were literally walking into the shop and dropping the cash jobs.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on March 17, 2017, 11:31:32 AM
Surely if you have cutter money, it's a mere 1 trade to get the Cobra you want.  This is something I found quite head hurting when I got both my Anaconda and my Python ;  suddenly ships that took me ages before were literally walking into the shop and dropping the cash jobs.


Well I _had_ Cutter money until I bought it :-) but I'm reluctant to fly it until I can afford to upgrade the shield and FSD on it so I'm grinding Quince for cash until the nerf hits in 2.3 - that said, yes I could afford one very quickly but until I'm done in Quince I just wouldn't get the opportunity to actually use it for anything


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on March 22, 2017, 02:21:40 AM
So I had a play with the Cobra III and IV in a Low CZ last night [with as identical a fit as the slots would allow]

The bad press the IV gets regarding it's [lack of] speed and agility is entirely justified and out of the 4 runs I did into the zone I only lost the IV (admitted only once) while not losing the III (although I left with a compromised canopy twice)

Where the IV beats the III hands down is hardpoint placement. I'd forgotten how much of a pain the underside small hardpoints on the III were to use (almost no point putting gimbals in there) and found it very hard to bring them to bear during a a turning battle. The IV on the other hand has all 5 hardpoints on the top making them very easy to bring to bear. Given the lack of agility I'm actually considering putting turrets on....

The IV can indeed fit a considerably larger hull tank than the III, while I didn't have any success running a pure hull tank fit (I keep forgetting to run silent) I did have success running HRP's alongside a 4A Prismatic on the III (but the hardpoints let me down) so I'm currently engineering a IV with a Prismatic/HRP fit to try out - hopefully I can get some more speed out of it by reducing weight after getting the power output up and the shield power drain/mass down.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on March 27, 2017, 05:30:43 AM
hopefully I can get some more speed out of it by reducing weight after getting the power output up and the shield power drain/mass down.

I'm not quite there there yet as I only unlocked Selene Jean over the weekend and haven't had chance to take the IV to her yet:
http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=A084,EjH0EjH0Hdh0Hdh0Kp90,CzY0DBw0,9on0A72GC26n7i8rL-AMgGV56q008qEAEhhXGrBoKyJTAcIGf50uOb6qUk8riZGuPgKmdrAqq0B3_0BK40BWQ0,,7RBGo52w236xgTAwJPImceKk1215O015O015O013q013q012G012G0 (http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=A084,EjH0EjH0Hdh0Hdh0Kp90,CzY0DBw0,9on0A72GC26n7i8rL-AMgGV56q008qEAEhhXGrBoKyJTAcIGf50uOb6qUk8riZGuPgKmdrAqq0B3_0BK40BWQ0,,7RBGo52w236xgTAwJPImceKk1215O015O015O013q013q012G012G0)

But, theorycrafting it, the IV is still not going to reach the speed of a stock III even if I lighten everything possible, strip off all the HRP's off and drop the hull back to a 1D (at which point ithe IV weighs less than a stock III). The question is then is it fast enough?

-edit-
Having looked at CMDR Na'Qan's IV fit's the solution to the IV's problems appears to be the Engineer Prof. Palin*...... and Dirty Drive tuning grade 5

*who requires you to have travelled 5Kly distance from your starting system and have got the pain-in-the-ass-to-unlock Engineer Qwent to grade 3


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 03, 2017, 04:31:47 AM
I'm finally in an Asp Explorer.

I spent some time in my Cobra Mk III trading and fighting successfully, until I stumbled on a mining outpost in a state of Outbreak where basic medicine was going for something like 4000 and demand was vast. I could buy them for about 200 just 5LY away.

This made me buy a Type 6 and max out its cargo capacity. I shuttled back and forth in my space truck until I had to log off for life reasons. When I returned, the outbreak was over so I traded metals from the mining outpost to refinery systems until they ran out. I got sick of that so I upgraded the Type 6 to an A-grade FSD and a first-class passenger bay and took a few passenger missions, for between about 1-2 million each.

I had pretty much maxed out the Type 6 and it was actually pretty good to fly by the time I had about 14 million credits. But I got bored of trading again. For my sanity, I had to buy the Asp a bit early. I can only afford a mix of A and B class equipment at the moment, so it's just roughly equivalent to the maxed-out Type 6. But now I can earn more and max it out... And actually fight back if I get interdicted.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on April 03, 2017, 04:46:17 AM
Initially I disliked the Asp E on nostalgia grounds but once I owned one in E:D I warmed to it (I still don't like the huge bulge down it's spine).

If you haven't already gone so and you have Horizons you should take the time to unlock Farseer and get her to grade 5 for the FSD range increase.

It's a pretty good multi-role and an 'easy take' for anything long distance (although I've heard word of a Dimondback range buff in 2.3 which may upset the apple cart), I kept mine and still use it for distance work.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 03, 2017, 05:42:10 AM
I agree. The Asp Explorer is a bit ugly. I actually went and bought a paint kit for real $ to make it better to look at (imho). Even looking at the paint kits for the Cobra Mk III on the same page, they look waay better than anything for the Asp. But yeah, six hardpoints and cargo space and long range jumps... Sold.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 03, 2017, 09:01:08 PM
This is from Reddit and it made me laugh.

Quote from: sidereal6
Brave commander, if you will aid our noble faction by killing our enemies, we will gladly reward you will one million galactic credits
I accept this...
...and four tonnes of neofabric insulation!
Oh, no thanks bro.
you refuse our offer?
No. No, I'll take the mission. I just don't need any neopets or whatever.
*neofabric insulation *
Yeah. I'm all set in the neo...
*fabric. Neofabric. *
Yeah. I don't need that.
that is the mission reward.
Okay. But I don't need it. I mean, I don't even have space for it. Four tonnes? Seriously? Isn't this basically a bunch of fancy rugs you're trying to give me?
*gasp* what? Our neofabric insulation is made from the finest quality nanotechnology textile process*
Uh huh. And what do people use it for?
*it has many uses! It's ideal for use as a modular decorative protective cover for personal domicile flooring *
Dude, that's a rug.
many of our customers report that neofabric insulation is a central and fundamental component of their living quarters!
So, "it really ties the room together" is that what you're saying?
*how dare you mock our employment opportunity! *
God. I don't have cargo racks on my ship.
then just leave. I no longer wish to hire you.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 12, 2017, 04:35:47 PM
Anyone of you following development a little closer than me, are there rumors about the next expansion/season? Timelines and/or features? Or is it all completely unmentioned and secret?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 12, 2017, 04:53:47 PM
I don't think I'm following it closer than you, but I think it will be all about the Thargoids, given all the stuff that's been happening lately. There may also be a galactic civil war caused by Thargoid intervention. Some of the plot lines suggest the insectoid Thargoids have infiltrated the Empire, lizardman style (think "V").

In the original Elite, the Thargoids would interdict you within witchspace (inside the hyperspace "tunnel") and you'd fly around at stupidly fast speeds fighting them before being free to continue in witchspace. Their large main ships had little "Tharglets" (effectively ship-launched fighters) that would also come out and attack you. They were a challenge and quite scary at first until you had enough equipment and knowledge to survive.

I haven't played since the patch went live, but I'm thinking that I should downgrade to a Dolphin, fully spec it and fly luxury-class passenger missions. With such speed and jump range at relatively low cost for high payouts, that looks like easy money.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 13, 2017, 12:11:40 AM
Character creator is pretty cool (million times better than Mass Effect Andromeda *sigh*). Too bad there's no long hair, but still pretty cool.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/ELITE%20char%20Clipboard02.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 13, 2017, 12:56:00 AM
Patched up the 10Gb last night and then when I logged in was too tired to actually check out changes.

I'll have a look tonight.  The default pilot I had was some black guy who reminded me way too much of that dickhead from SWTOR, so that's going to need changed pronto.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 13, 2017, 05:34:57 AM
So long hair still difficult to model?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on April 13, 2017, 06:17:15 AM
So long hair still difficult to model?

Not regulatory for ship commanders.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 13, 2017, 12:03:19 PM
The lack of long hair is fucking annoying to me. The tool is not EVE or Black Desert, but it's nice even for 2017. Yet, no long hair is a disappointment.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 14, 2017, 08:16:40 AM
I've been trying to update to 2.3 for three days now. Even deleted all game files and uninstalled/reinstalled the launcher. Game is stuck either at download or at preparing/validating game files. Sometimes the multi threaded downloader gets confused and several threads try to download the same files..


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 14, 2017, 10:21:10 AM
Sorry to hear that. I installed from scratch on Steam and it all worked without a glitch.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 14, 2017, 03:53:28 PM
Installed straight through first time for me. I haven't run it yet though.

Sounds like you have something corrupt on your install, Jeff.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on April 14, 2017, 06:47:20 PM
And the PS4 wait continues....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 14, 2017, 06:56:03 PM
Installed straight through first time for me. I haven't run it yet though.

Sounds like you have something corrupt on your install, Jeff.

Patch downloaded and installed fine for me too. I logged in and sat in a starport playing with Holo-Me, encountered a texture problem with faces, and then had to log out.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 15, 2017, 08:29:24 AM
Unsuccessfully tried to install for four days now. Have exhausted support as well. I'm converting my key to a steam key now.

Screw that stupid launcher


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 15, 2017, 08:45:38 AM
Oh you were not passing through Steam yet? I can tell you that Steam will still open that launcher for you (sorry), but hey somehow maybe their integrity check works better.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 15, 2017, 08:55:41 AM
As long as it doesn't download the game through the launcher I'll be fine.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on April 15, 2017, 12:16:41 PM
This game is just fucking amazing in vr


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 16, 2017, 01:11:07 PM
Linked my Frontier account to Steam. Added keys to steam. Currently downloading the game at 5 MB/s. Should have done this a long time ago.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 16, 2017, 03:54:55 PM
The Commander creator is pretty damn good. Took me less than half an hour to design something that resembles me and comes pretty close.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 20, 2017, 01:57:24 PM
Thought I'd try one of the community goals. Loaded up my ASP with auto fabricators and headed for Maia. Took me 14 jumps and about half an hour to get from the last inhabited system to Maia.

Made it into Obsidian Orbital and got rammed off the landing pad and insta-killed by a CMDR Harry Potter :roll: in an imperial cutter. Guy was clearly griefing players.

Attempt cost me a million in insurance, 300,000 credits worth of cargo and about an hour of travel time.

TL;DR: I'm not doing something like this ever again.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 20, 2017, 09:15:45 PM
I reckon you should reserve that sort of activity for Solo Play.

You can switch between Solo and Open without penalty, because it's all done on the same servers. You get to use your same ship and same assets in both modes, so you can choose whether or not to have the presence of griefers with engineered railguns.

P.S. Why do so many people write Asp in upper case? It's a snake, just like a Sidewinder or an Anaconda, sorry I mean ANACONDA.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 21, 2017, 02:09:49 AM
I basically stopped doing anything in open play after two particularly annoying incidents.  I'm too old and prone to fury to deal with that sort of shit from other people if I don't have to.  Fuck them.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 21, 2017, 03:01:20 AM
My auto correct weirdly capitalized the Asp.

You can do community goals in single? Counterintuitive but welcome. Open is a cesspit and going by the ED communities the griefers have actually won. Reddit and the Frontier Forums read like the musings of people in abusive relationships.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 21, 2017, 03:04:33 AM
Yeah, fuck that shit.  It's like no-one understands what Raph was talking about at all. 

There's no downside to being an utter fucking retard in Open and huge downside to, you know, attempting to play the game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 21, 2017, 03:49:29 AM
Yeah, fuck that shit.  It's like no-one understands what Raph was talking about at all. 

Reading the ED subreddit or the official forums is 'interesting'. Gankers, PKs and antisocial assholes are not only openly bragging about what they do, they seem to have convinced most of the people and the dev team that what they are doing is a legitimate playstyle.

Combat logging is a bannable offense while griefing players in the starting area is not. One of the loudest and most obnoxious guilds - SCP - has members with YouTube and Twitch channels including videos titled 'ganking noobs', who doxx and harass other players and who have even hijacked charity streams 'for the lulz'. They are not only still able to play, they can openly use the official forums to brag about what they do and to intimidate players who beg Frontier to take a much more active stance on griefers and arseholes. The 'victims' who still play open act like people in abused relationships, defending the griefers, putting blame on themselves and rationalizing the behavior of those people.

Meanwhile the biggest chunk of players is playing in private groups or in single. The biggest private group has 20,000 members and s strict PVE policy and almost all guilds and streamers exclusively play private groups.

If you enable antisocial behaviour only arseholes remain and the normal players leave. It's exactly as if no one understands anything Raph is telling us for two decades now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 21, 2017, 03:50:54 AM
THEN WE ARE IN VIOLENT AGREEMENT !


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on April 21, 2017, 05:06:21 AM
Yeah, fuck that shit.  It's like no-one understands what Raph was talking about at all. 

Reading the ED subreddit or the official forums is 'interesting'. Gankers, PKs and antisocial assholes are not only openly bragging about what they do, they seem to have convinced most of the people and the dev team that what they are doing is a legitimate playstyle.

Combat logging is a bannable offense while griefing players in the starting area is not. One of the loudest and most obnoxious guilds - SCP - has members with YouTube and Twitch channels including videos titled 'ganking noobs', who doxx and harass other players and who have even hijacked charity streams 'for the lulz'. They are not only still able to play, they can openly use the official forums to brag about what they do and to intimidate players who beg Frontier to take a much more active stance on griefers and arseholes. The 'victims' who still play open act like people in abused relationships, defending the griefers, putting blame on themselves and rationalizing the behavior of those people.

Meanwhile the biggest chunk of players is playing in private groups or in single. The biggest private group has 20,000 members and s strict PVE policy and almost all guilds and streamers exclusively play private groups.

If you enable antisocial behaviour only arseholes remain and the normal players leave. It's exactly as if no one understands anything Raph is telling us for two decades now.

And they [may be] going to run a plot event on the 29th in open!

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/66khta/event_on_the_29th_of_april_feedback_sought/


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 21, 2017, 06:30:57 AM
"We are not convinced we can rely on the entire open community to 'honour the rules of fair conduct'".  :roll: :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mandella on April 21, 2017, 11:45:57 AM
There is no downside that I know of in going Solo, or Friends Only. This is one of the things I think ED got right. If you don't want to play with the assholes, then don't.

I don't, and in fact I wouldn't even know they exist if it weren't for posts like the Jeff's.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 21, 2017, 11:50:34 AM
If I am doing something in my lesser traveled parts of the bubble, I would like seeing the occasional pilot flying past. Makes me feel less lontly out there

If I am going somewhere where there will be a lot of people, then I engage my solo cloak. Hell I did it when I reached Jacques Station, 20000 LY away. No effing way am I trusting a crowd on the internet.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 21, 2017, 01:30:56 PM
The griefers haven't "won". They simply created a hostile content that doesn't sound popular but is always in demand, even moreso these days with the very popular Ultima Online clones from DayZ to Rust.
So, since there are solo play AND group play (Trammel) which are 100% safe, the griefers made sure there is an OPTIONAL Felucca. Thank you.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 21, 2017, 02:59:26 PM
You can do community goals in single? Counterintuitive but welcome.

There is no single-player mode in Elite Dangerous. Effectively it's all instanced on the same servers. Solo is an instance by yourself. Group is an instance with your friends. Open is an instance with the other randoms. Switch between them as you see fit; they're all connected.

Half the stuff on the boards is people who think it's a choice between single player, being in a gaming club, or playing an MMO. It's all of those at once depending on who you want to be able to encounter.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on April 21, 2017, 05:29:29 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh9AWV_BWo0


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 21, 2017, 05:57:47 PM
That was Hi-larious.  :awesome_for_real:

Especially as i am probably going to get my hands on a type 9 soon.

Another thing i'f seem people do is launch and then sit there for 10 minutes till the station blows them up. Why? Because if people are using autodocking, that will leave them sitting outside the station as "they are in the queue." Its passive griefing but hey.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 22, 2017, 03:50:21 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh9AWV_BWo0

I think that makes the 3rd time you've landed that on us and it makes me laugh like a hyena every time.   :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on April 22, 2017, 08:36:51 AM
I'm feeling like I need to give this another try.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 22, 2017, 03:28:22 PM
Someone was asking me if I'd recommend it and I found myself wondering. Clearly I love it, but I could use more... things.

What are you missing the most and would love to see in the game? Or, if you were in charge of the next expansion, what would you put into it?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on April 22, 2017, 09:27:04 PM
Someone was asking me if I'd recommend it and I found myself wondering. Clearly I love it, but I could use more... things.

What are you missing the most and would love to see in the game? Or, if you were in charge of the next expansion, what would you put into it?

I would love some way to keep growing once you get the ship you want (cutter in my case). Something like how the X games did it with player owned stations and npc ships.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 23, 2017, 02:14:22 AM
Someone was asking me if I'd recommend it and I found myself wondering. Clearly I love it, but I could use more... things.

What are you missing the most and would love to see in the game? Or, if you were in charge of the next expansion, what would you put into it?

IMHO it's the same as the 1980s Elite, but better. Nothing is on rails for you to follow. It's the year 3303 as your sandbox. It has a vast number of "things". The people who are bored of it have many hundreds of hours of gameplay, but they haven't done everything. They've just done the things they want more of.

I'd recommend the 1980s Elite, so I recommend Elite: Dangerous more. Steam claims I have 296 hours now, some of which is probably just being logged in and AFK, but I feel I'm only getting started.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 23, 2017, 02:36:31 AM
I have done the Commander thing now (I look great, but old) and I've named some of my ships and even chucked a couple of quid at Braben so I have nameplates showing the names.  I've also joined a big PVE guild just so it's not always so lonesome.

I also made a couple of mill before getting blown away by the cops for Smuggling Obi-Wan and Luke.  Dammit.

I agree that this games does need 'MORE' to be honest, but they're working on it and, much like Tale, it works for me for the moment.  I truly DO want something 'offline' and 'X-ey' whether that's stations of NPC tradeships. That said, I enjoy it for what it is and it doesn't have a sub, so why should I care ?

If there was one real complaint is that it seriously needs more ingame handholding to be available.  The amount of 3rd party websites and stuff I need to lookup is STUPID.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 23, 2017, 04:20:04 AM
Do you know how much military grade composite costs on a type 9. I do. 63 fucking mill. *Triggered*

400 shield though.  :grin: 5A shield + 4 boosters. Pity the ship is a fucking whale as I really could not afford the top end thrusters. Oh well. Time to earn some creds.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on April 23, 2017, 05:05:09 AM
and I am still waiting on the god damn PS4 release... 4 months, still not a peep.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 23, 2017, 06:34:29 AM
Join the PC master race, scrub.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on April 23, 2017, 07:33:26 AM
Join the PC master race, scrub.  :awesome_for_real:

PS4 might be a good idea if they decide to (properly) support Playstation VR for ED.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 23, 2017, 07:39:25 AM
Do you know how much military grade composite costs on a type 9. I do. 63 fucking mill. *Triggered*

400 shield though.  :grin: 5A shield + 4 boosters. Pity the ship is a fucking whale as I really could not afford the top end thrusters. Oh well. Time to earn some creds.

Why ???


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 23, 2017, 12:09:21 PM
Just so you're all aware, there's a money making passenger exploit in Quince.  I'm too moral for it, but it works a friend says it works.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 23, 2017, 04:27:54 PM
I'm finding passenger missions in general are my best money-making option now (I have about ~30 million total). I downgraded to a Dolphin for a while to do the luxury cabin ones, but I'm back in an Asp Explorer because there's not enough of a difference income-wise.

Boom states seem to be full of wealthy people who want to go 1-2 places in space within 100ly for ~1.6 million. If there's none of those, I get the best available one-way passenger mission to another system and retry there.

Some passengers demand 3 units of consumer technology or whatever along the way, but all they offer is an extra 50k, so I don't bother meeting their demands unless the item is available on the starting system's market.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 23, 2017, 07:14:05 PM
Why ???

Becasue if I didn't buy a type 9 it would be bugging me that I had not bought it and I would be wondering what its like. I know intulectually that what its like is "Utter shit" but I just need to experience the horror. I know myself at this point.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 24, 2017, 12:10:51 AM
It was my worst experience.  Its an awful ship. Luke, truly bad.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 24, 2017, 03:05:44 AM
There's a pretty large price gap between the Asp Explorer and the next non-faction multipurpose ship, the Python. The ASP costs 6.6 million credits, the Python 56.9 million. The same goes for the gap between the Python and the Anaconda at 146.9 million credits. I wish there was a better progression in terms of ships. The only non-faction ships between the Asp and the Python are the Fer-De-Lance, the Orca and the Type 7 and they're all not that great.

It's even worse going from the Python to the Anaconda, because the only alternatives are the Beluga and the Type 9.

Also why are the imperial vessels all pretty good multipurpose ships and the federation just pretty bland combat vessels?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 24, 2017, 03:49:27 AM
I like the changes to exploration payouts.

Re-did my trip to Maia (in private play) while using 'economical' routing. Made about 4.5 million credits just from 'pinging' systems with my discovery scanner and scanning a few water worlds. Made more on exploration than with the missions to and from Maia.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 24, 2017, 03:56:05 AM
Yeah, I have a Python, Anaconda, Asp, Mining Type-7 and a wee Sidey.

Or, as they're now known ; Sumerian Dream, Galadriel, Cleopatra, Mr Smashy and Wee Nippy.

I do love that you can now name your ships.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 24, 2017, 03:56:29 AM
I like the changes to exploration payouts.

Re-did my trip to Maia (in private play) while using 'economical' routing. Made about 4.5 million credits just from 'pinging' systems with my discovery scanner and scanning a few water worlds. Made more on exploration than with the missions to and from Maia.

What were the changes ? 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 24, 2017, 04:27:02 AM
They increased payouts across the board, especially for water and terraformable worlds.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 24, 2017, 04:51:28 AM
Nice.  I usually just Honk the system and then bug out, since it's never really worth the time to scan the individuals.  I may make time from now on !

That said, after my last success, I'm going to head back to the Coalsack at some point and piss on some planets to mark them as mine.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on April 24, 2017, 04:05:47 PM
I just have to say that flying an Anaconda in VR is amazing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on April 25, 2017, 05:05:53 AM
Just so you're all aware, there's a money making passenger exploit in Quince.  I'm too moral for it, but it works a friend says it works.

Exploit is a strong word - technically I'd say it's poor coding.

What makes Quince special is that it's far enough away from other inhabited systems that nearly all of the missions you get in Qunice have the target system of Quince.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 25, 2017, 07:07:43 AM
Yeah.  I've made about 50 million on it so far.  It's pretty insane.  I have a Python with nowt but cabins and a docking computer.  Hell, I may remove the DC because 90% of the time you have to fly manually in silent mode because you're carrying 'Captain Fuckstick, Intergalactic Fucko'.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on April 25, 2017, 09:23:22 AM
Yeah.  I've made about 50 million on it so far.  It's pretty insane.  I have a Python with nowt but cabins and a docking computer.  Hell, I may remove the DC because 90% of the time you have to fly manually in silent mode because you're carrying 'Captain Fuckstick, Intergalactic Fucko'.



How are you finding manual approach followed by docking comp?

Mine seems to actively try and crash me in the bay in protest for not being allowed to bring the ship in


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 25, 2017, 09:45:09 AM
Once I'm through the slot, hitting the DC brings me in nicely every time. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 25, 2017, 11:06:38 AM
I've tried a few missions last night and god is this shit half assed even for FDev Standards.

I really dislike FDev's notion of how to gauge effort and difficulty and therefore mission payouts. Missions with decent payouts are walled off by arbitrary preconditions ("you need to be friendly with this two factions and have an explorer rank of godlike) or include a ridiculous list of caveats, like: "please transport this crime boss who is wanted in 20 systems across half the bubble to visit 7 sights and return. You have 2 hours and he's hunted by half the police in this sector.

The system itself is very broken. There is no hint and no feedback how to complete mission objectives. In my first mission I stayed at the beacon for nearly ten minutes with no clue or way to check if my objective was met. The message came 20 minutes later after I was already half way back to the station.

Sometimes you can't complete a mission because an optional objective is still open. I once couldn't complete a mission because the person was wanted and the event that spawns his pursuers was already triggered, even though I completed everything else. Had to leave the station again and trigger the interdiction.

Missions also rely entirely too much on smuggler tactics for difficulty. Most VIP missions have at least a "doesn't want to be scanned' or 'may be wanted' attribute. I'd wish they had more variety without relying on cheap difficulty and flagging everything with the need to do silent runs and heatsink launchers.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on April 25, 2017, 03:00:27 PM
I've tried a few missions last night and god is this shit half assed even for FDev Standards.


I've only ever previously bothered with A to B passenger missions and avoided anything multi-hop and/or long distance (I know they pay well but :effort:)

I've seen enough questions about passenger missions on the Reddit to appreciate the difficulties you describe though.

The Quince ones are simple in that you are just scanning (targeting) a visitor beacon in the same system and landing again - granted you do have to be careful about not being scanned if you aren't picky about who you transport but I've found silent running to be enough any not needed and heat sink malarky.

Faction rep is a barrier to entry for all missions everywhere and, at Quince, you may need to do some scan missions/trade goods/sell cartographic data/do donate missions to unlock the better paying ones (I've found selling the cartographic gathered on the way and scan missions to be enough to get started).

Your explorer rank simply provides the baseline for the payments offered (you seem to be able to be offered missions up to 2 ranks higher than your current one)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 25, 2017, 03:23:17 PM
I went over to Sothis a month or so ago, and it has missions to the beacon in the system as well. But it wasn't giving any payout for the missions, so I didn't bother, and left.

Maybe they have a minimum payout? vOv


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 25, 2017, 03:44:15 PM
How are you finding manual approach followed by docking comp?

Mine seems to actively try and crash me in the bay in protest for not being allowed to bring the ship in

I always use a docking computer. I find they behave much the same as in the 1984 game. I can land manually, but I don't see the point in spending more of my own time at the controls, especially when doing a trading loop.

When I drop from supercruise, I boost to within 7.5km of the station, request docking and drop speed so the docking computer kicks in. Then I relax.

It has only failed me once ever, when I gave it an awkward starting angle quite close to a Coriolis station. It missed the whole entrance structure and smacked into the side of the station, regathered itself, flew out and turned around and docked. I was up for a couple of thousand credits in repair. This is about the same error rate as in the 1980s. Occasionally it is a little slow at lining up, but if I give it a good starting angle, it has no problem.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 25, 2017, 04:04:27 PM
Missions with decent payouts are walled off by arbitrary preconditions ("you need to be friendly with this two factions and have an explorer rank of godlike)

Faction rank yes, but I don't think you actually need the explorer rank specified. It just warns you that technically it's above your pay grade.

Quote
or include a ridiculous list of caveats, like: "please transport this crime boss who is wanted in 20 systems across half the bubble to visit 7 sights and return. You have 2 hours and he's hunted by half the police in this sector.

It's a trap. I avoid those. There's almost always a mission with a better set of parameters. If not, take a crap mission to another system and check a mission board there.

Quote
The system itself is very broken. There is no hint and no feedback how to complete mission objectives. In my first mission I stayed at the beacon for nearly ten minutes with no clue or way to check if my objective was met. The message came 20 minutes later after I was already half way back to the station.

Weird. That isn't happening to me. If it's a beacon, you target and scan it (wait while it scans) and you get a message from it (and/or from the passenger to say "Thanks, now I've seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. Bring me 3 units of Beer.").

The lack of instructions for everything in the game is really annoying though. I learn how to do things almost entirely from forum posts, wiki articles and YouTube videos. They build everything undocumented and effectively rely on a crowdsourced user manual.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 25, 2017, 04:30:05 PM
A player made an awesome trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a9wZlpyygI) using the new camera system.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 25, 2017, 04:36:33 PM
Today's patch seemed to have fixed most of my issues. Had no issues running travel missions tonight


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 26, 2017, 03:41:17 PM
Well, I went out in my type 9 tonight. Yeah, its a whale. I had to upgrade the thrusters to B (17 mill!) to make it somewhat flyable. But now it basically feels like the type 7, except slower. If I eventually get he 7A thrusters there is a faint chance it might get enjoyable to fly, but now its ok to fly as a truck while podcasts play.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 26, 2017, 07:12:38 PM
In about 45 minutes with a couple of "oops I ran into the sun" emergency braking moments, my Asp ran a rich tourist 90ly one way, then 120ly the other way, for 2.8 million. As the first step, we dropped off some one-way tourists nearby for 650k, so I got about 3.5 million all up.

I am at the point where I thought I would buy and outfit a Type 7 (I liked my A-rated Type 6), but the trade loops don't look like they would pay as reliably as the above.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 26, 2017, 07:24:34 PM
Lets put it this way. I was earning 1.9 mill per loop tonight with a 488 ton cargo hold, on a 8 jump round trip. Its not bad when you have a ship worth 100 mill I guess (though as noted the ship was sluggish as hell, so docking took a couple of minutes), but with a type 7 you will be getting around a 212 cargo hold, which means you would be earning less than half that on the same loop.

There is no comparison, really. Keep ferrying those passengers.

*edit* Yeah, I agree with you, the type 6 was tremendous fun to fly, as it was agile as all hell. The later types are bricks though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 26, 2017, 08:53:19 PM
but with a type 7 you will be getting around a 212 cargo hold, which means you would be earning less than half that on the same loop.

But an unengineered Type 7 with an A-rated FSD can jump about 17ly laden, so I wouldn't be doing the same loop. Set up like this (https://coriolis.io/outfit/type_7_transport/0p5tiFflid8sdf4--------0505040403030124.AwRj4yrI.Aw18aQ==) I calculate 1,046,064 profit on the best current loop with a 17ly range (https://eddb.io/trade/loops) (min supply/demand 1500, price age 2 days, my location Yembo).

Maybe that would make more money than ferrying passengers, at the expense of some sanity.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 26, 2017, 09:02:13 PM
Mysterious derelict ship with audio logs found

http://kotaku.com/elite-players-find-a-giant-abandoned-spaceship-1794648202


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 26, 2017, 09:03:34 PM
5D Thrusters on a Type 7?

Um, yes, looks fine. Go ahead, tell us how it works out. The experience will be good for you. :pedobear:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 26, 2017, 09:04:15 PM
5D Thrusters on a Type 7?

Um, yes, looks fine. Go ahead, tell us how it works out. The experience will be good for you. :pedobear:

Haha okay that was someone else's setup. I'll install 5A for you.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 27, 2017, 07:25:20 AM
Wanted to buy a Python next. Unfortunately it collides with my pet peeve and inability. Seating position is not center of cockpit.

I can't deal with that. Tried it with the Cobra and it irritated me the whole time. I always flew into things or got confused because I always reset to 'well I obviously sit in the middle' mode. The field of view in the cockpit makes it so that it always seems like you're dead center even when you sit on the left.

It's a silly problem, I know.

Well I guess I have to wait until I have enough money for an Anaconda then


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 27, 2017, 07:49:33 AM
The two ships aren't really comparable though.  I have a trading Anaconda (It's a goddamn MONSTER) and a Passenger Python and the Python is a lovely nippy wee bugger that can do loads - transport, trading, fighting, the lot.  The Anaconda scares the hell out of me.  It's huge and expensive and the rebuy alone is scary as shit and because it's a whale, it's something I tend not to touch rather than the Python.  You think you're bothered by not being in the middle ?  Wait till you're not in the middle because you're HIGH AS HELL and you scrape your goddamn hull on the docking every time because you pretty much have to try to scrape your head !

Also, just to chime in on the other argument, my Anaconda trades a shitload of tons and even with slaves it in NO WAY compares to the sheer amount of cash I can generate with passenger missions.

There's literally no bigger earner than passenger missions except MAYBE combat.  And I'm a massive pussy at combat, so I tend not to.  It's just too frustrating when some shit gets in lucky and you die and lose all your bounties.  

Edit;  Whale, not while.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on April 27, 2017, 08:05:30 AM
Mysterious derelict ship with audio logs found

http://kotaku.com/elite-players-find-a-giant-abandoned-spaceship-1794648202

Old news (about a week IIRC) I'm afraid, since then 2 generation ships (with audio logs) have been found (as well as a few other megaships without any logs).

However the generation ships are unrelated to the Zurara which is part of the Formadine Rift 'mystery' for which an in-game 'event' is happening on the 29th.....

In other news 3rd party tool sites strike in protest at FDev communication https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/67v44q/support3rdparty_why_we_temporarily_shut_down_our/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/67v44q/support3rdparty_why_we_temporarily_shut_down_our/)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on April 27, 2017, 08:09:58 AM
Wanted to buy a Python next. Unfortunately it collides with my pet peeve and inability. Seating position is not center of cockpit.

I can't deal with that. Tried it with the Cobra and it irritated me the whole time. I always flew into things or got confused because I always reset to 'well I obviously sit in the middle' mode. The field of view in the cockpit makes it so that it always seems like you're dead center even when you sit on the left.

It's a silly problem, I know.

Well I guess I have to wait until I have enough money for an Anaconda then

Personally I've found that where the Python is larger it's less noticible than on the Cobra (unless you are mouse looking around the cockit)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 27, 2017, 08:46:08 AM
The python has a line down the right sode of your view that you can try to pretend is the other side of the view, so its bearable on the Python - ish. But yeah I find offset cockpits to be unbearable too. That's one of the reasons I decided not to bother with the Imperial grind, as the top ship has a 2 seat cockpit too.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on April 27, 2017, 11:37:52 AM
The two ships aren't really comparable though.  I have a trading Anaconda (It's a goddamn MONSTER) and a Passenger Python and the Python is a lovely nippy wee bugger that can do loads - transport, trading, fighting, the lot.  The Anaconda scares the hell out of me.  It's huge and expensive and the rebuy alone is scary as shit and because it's a while, it's something I tend not to touch rather than the Python.  You think you're bothered by not being in the middle ?  Wait till you're not in the middle because you're HIGH AS HELL and you scrape your goddamn hull on the docking every time because you pretty much have to try to scrape your head !

Also, just to chime in on the other argument, my Anaconda trades a shitload of tons and even with slaves it in NO WAY compares to the sheer amount of cash I can generate with passenger missions.

There's literally no bigger earner than passenger missions except MAYBE combat.  And I'm a massive pussy at combat, so I tend not to.  It's just too frustrating when some shit gets in lucky and you die and lose all your bounties. 

The anaconda's bridge sits completely differently than most any other ship (corvette's cockpit sit roughly the same?). Most ships cockpits sit up in front unlike the conda which sits towards the rear - that leads to completely different ways of controlling the ship especially in tight spots. Given the 'progression' in ships, moving to the conda is a huge leap not only in price, but style of flying - which is risky given it's cost (upgrading and insurance).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 28, 2017, 01:11:36 PM
Why's there always a Beluga blocking the slot when you try to enter or exit a station these days. I swear these things just materialize right there.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on April 28, 2017, 01:48:24 PM
the saud krueger ships should be ships you can only purchase for hundreds of dollars in the game's cash store.

it would make perfect sense.

they're all whales


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 28, 2017, 02:28:27 PM
Pro moment yesterday; Trying to Exit a station in a type 9 when a Cutter was trying to enter. We met in the middle. Hilarity ensues.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 28, 2017, 02:57:14 PM
Heads up: massive in-game events (http://www.polygon.com/2017/4/25/15421444/elite-dangerous-formidine-rift-riddle-salome-battle-time) happening this weekend.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 28, 2017, 05:09:45 PM
Pro moment yesterday; Trying to Exit a station in a type 9 when a Cutter was trying to enter. We met in the middle. Hilarity ensues.

200 Credit Fine: Reckless Flying


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 28, 2017, 05:10:31 PM
Heads up: massive in-game events (http://www.polygon.com/2017/4/25/15421444/elite-dangerous-formidine-rift-riddle-salome-battle-time) happening this weekend.

I'll stay away from open. Also the servers will probably be shit.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 28, 2017, 10:36:21 PM
The thought of jumping a combat ready ship out there is making be say fuck that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 29, 2017, 09:45:22 AM
Going by things on Reddit and the official forums the event is already a veritable shitshow.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 29, 2017, 03:22:23 PM
I gather from Reddit that the players defending Salome (the event's key NPC) allowed griefer guild Smiling Dog Crew (SDC) into the defence effort and their most hated member CMDR Harry Potter killed Salome. Given that there are articles like this about their organised griefing (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-04-01-griefers-or-saviours-the-elite-dangerous-players-causing-a-rift-in-space) it seems incredible that this level of fail was achieved.

The author who writes the official Elite Dangerous novels in which Salome is the main character had promised to write the outcome into the books, so it's now quite funny that she was killed by Harry Potter.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on April 29, 2017, 04:43:19 PM
Love when a game gets to the point where only a select subset of the player base are actually able to control everything. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy...

Now to get over this dumb shit event, can Frontier please get a target on the PS4 release?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 29, 2017, 06:18:01 PM
so, the events and even the abandoned ships and stuff are only accessible in open play where a few assholes can spoil the fun for everyone else? How incredibly stupid, yet not at all surprising.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on April 29, 2017, 08:13:45 PM
so, the events and even the abandoned ships and stuff are only accessible in open play where a few assholes can spoil the fun for everyone else? How incredibly stupid, yet not at all surprising.

Eerily similar to GTA with the CEO and biker shit. Can only do those types of missions in open.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mandella on April 29, 2017, 09:04:29 PM
I gather from Reddit that the players defending Salome (the event's key NPC) allowed griefer guild Smiling Dog Crew (SDC) into the defence effort and their most hated member CMDR Harry Potter killed Salome. Given that there are articles like this about their organised griefing (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-04-01-griefers-or-saviours-the-elite-dangerous-players-causing-a-rift-in-space) it seems incredible that this level of fail was achieved.

The author who writes the official Elite Dangerous novels in which Salome is the main character had promised to write the outcome into the books, so it's now quite funny that she was killed by Harry Potter.

The very brigand who struck down Jeff Kelly! Truly his villainy grows...

And honestly, except for having the change the name, I would imagine fictionalizing how a pirate group infiltrated the defense forces and treacherously struck down their leader wouldn't be that bad a story at all.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 29, 2017, 10:06:53 PM
so, the events and even the abandoned ships and stuff are only accessible in open play where a few assholes can spoil the fun for everyone else? How incredibly stupid, yet not at all surprising.

I was placing personal pets that something like that would occur. Hell it happened in Eve online all the time when people did events. or official events happened.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on April 30, 2017, 04:17:01 AM
It's always interesting when designers don't seem to know how something that has gone wrong in numerous other games in the past can go wrong. I scratch my head every time I see that. *We* all know about these kinds of design bottlenecks, why don't they?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 30, 2017, 06:30:53 AM
It's always interesting when designers don't seem to know how something that has gone wrong in numerous other games in the past can go wrong. I scratch my head every time I see that. *We* all know about these kinds of design bottlenecks, why don't they?

FWIW I don't think anything has gone wrong. I disagree with all but one of the posts that came after mine above. The devs and the novelist have handled this well, and the event was fine.

The "fail" I mentioned was intended to mean the players guarding Salome. It sounds like they let a fifth column into their ranks. And yes that probably makes for a good storyline, as Mandella said in the post I agree with. It may even have been intended.

so, the events and even the abandoned ships and stuff are only accessible in open play where a few assholes can spoil the fun for everyone else? How incredibly stupid, yet not at all surprising.

As I understand it, the abandoned ships and stuff are available in solo play. Only the event this weekend was in open play, as it was a PvP event.

Cheer up, thread. This is a great game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 30, 2017, 08:18:24 AM
The big player groups threatened to shoot down and interdict every casual player who wanted to participate. The discords were invitation only. The forums featured sticky posts that were basically long winded "Keep Out: Casuals" signs. They also did and could enforce that policy unopposed.

They'd rather invite the most well known scumbag briefer guild than open the event up to all ED players. Also FDev and the event organizers didn't give one fuck about that.

Yeah a really healthy community.

The event and how it was handled by FDev was a shitshow run by the inmates of the asylum.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on April 30, 2017, 03:24:49 PM
It's always interesting when designers don't seem to know how something that has gone wrong in numerous other games in the past can go wrong. I scratch my head every time I see that. *We* all know about these kinds of design bottlenecks, why don't they?

The way the devs structured the way the event would play out guaranteed the outcome without their awareness. It would be like structuring an event where you lock people in a car trunk on a hot June day and say "we are really excited to see how these people influence events to turn out" what a surprise they died


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 30, 2017, 03:32:40 PM
There are ways to make games that thousands or hundreds of thousands of players can play together in, compete or cooperate on even footing, not be subject to having their play spoiled by cheaters or griefers, and generally everyone have a good time, win or lose. And there are ways to make games that aren't like that. The former is hard, the latter is lazy (not easy, lazy). This was a perfect example of the latter. I get that there is a vocal set of people who very much like the cutthroat, dog-eat-dog, "hardcore" game environment (except when they end up on the loosing side of the equation to some set of griefers even more hardcore and better organized than they are). What I don't get is why developers keep dumping money down that toilet where they allow a very very small percentage of their customers drive off most of the rest.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 30, 2017, 04:20:53 PM
Those small set of griefers are motivated to fill forums with bullshit to drive the game in the way they want and to shout down any contrary opinions so that the devs only get the feedback they want.. They see forum work as part of PVP. The Mechwarrior Online team won my grudging imagination when they responded to the "Clans are balanced, its just that clan players are more dedicated and better" by basically saying in one post "We looked at the data in our logs. The balance is not even close. We are making X and Y changes" with an implied "fuck you"


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 30, 2017, 08:14:22 PM
I liked Ars Technica's article (https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/04/elite-dangerous-community-plan-event-upended-by-masterful-troll/) about it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 02, 2017, 06:52:48 AM
There was another article I just read about these assholes (Specifically Harry Potter) and it's like a trip back in time.  They're actually complaining that Frontier allowing people private groups and solo play is an infringement of their right to gank players out of the game.

It's crazy how these people think, even crazier that we're still having this discussion every fucking time someone tries to do something cool that gets spoiled by ASSHOLES.

NO, MOTHERFUCKER, I HAVE NO INTEREST BEING THE SHEEP IN YOUR WOLF SIMULATOR.  FUCK OFF, YOU CUNT.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on May 02, 2017, 11:19:41 AM
Whats gets me is the distress in their tone when they complain about it. It's like they are physically hurt by the ability of players to ignore them. Someone should tell them that in nature most hunts fail as the prey have developed defenses. Wolves get a kill on average one day in 3. And the most dangerous animal in Africa are hippos.

Anyway, they are only Randian supermen because in this world they are not state sponsored Privateers and wont wind up being chased into deep space by the navies of the Empire and federation.. Because the game is designed not to call in the navy one their asses, and they are able to hide by logging out. They want the fun of fighting the helpless without the consequences.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on May 02, 2017, 12:16:18 PM
Never understood why you could just kill lesser players without penalty (fines do not come close to counting as a penalty). Killing an unwanted player should result in everything turning hostile towards you save those rouge outposts and bases/ports. Otherwise you should be hunted by NPCs in populated space (the bubble). Treat it like illicit cargo, illicit bounties should serve the same dishes but more widespread.

That said, thank god there is solo/private mode.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 02, 2017, 12:46:14 PM
Yuuuuup.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 02, 2017, 03:27:39 PM
Fan podcast Lave Radio has done an episode interviewing key players (http://laveradio.com/salome-aftermath-special/) involved in the event, which may help explain why they did things the way they did, and what happened from their perspective.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on May 02, 2017, 05:17:23 PM
What I am thinking about as a design bottleneck is creating a single event that only people who are multiplayer and present can really appreciate; you need to iterate 'fragments' of the event into all the play formats or spaces or you're really just creating a hierarchy that says: here is the way the game should really be played; here is something for carebears and doofuses.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on May 02, 2017, 05:38:11 PM
i wish that elite's failure to be able to manage the group simulation dynamics was an isolated issue not otherwise representative of frontier's failure with gameplay issues in general. instead, i'm looking at a whole package that more or less puts an effective cap on elite being that interesting or that worth playing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 03, 2017, 12:28:49 AM
The whining is not a new phenomenon. The "murder hobos" (actual self title) have bugged Frontier for years to punish combat logging and similar anti PK measures with account bans. They see it as unsportsmanlike behavior if people don't submit to being hunted and killed over and over again.

They have been successful as well, combat logging - even if you don't want to engage in PVP or even if you are clearly outmatched and at risk of losing millions of credits and weeks of playtime - is now something that will be punished if reported and can lead to an account termination.

The argument was always that you should simply play in private groups or solo if you didn't want to be perpetually ganked by sociopathic assholes because ganking Newbs was a legitimate playstyle and 'you should be able to role play a space pirate if you wanted to'. You know the same stupid arguments we keep hearing since UO was a thing.

Now they are petitioning Frontier to remove solo and privat group play altogether or at least severely gimp it (no access to community goals or certain in game events and stuff) because no one is playing in open anymore and they just have themselves to gank. The largest private group has 20,000 members which is probably more than there are active players in open.

So the bigger griefer  assholes - like SDC - are now resorting to infiltrating private groups with duplicate alias accounts to grief players until they get by the OPs of those groups. SDC even went as far as to grief and eventually shut down a charity stream one of the biggest private groups had organized. Frontier isn't doing anything against that either. When petitioned by the OPs of that group they said that it was basically not their problem and that it was the responsibility of the private group admins to police that.

Frontier simply doesn't care.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 03, 2017, 05:08:02 AM
Even though I had reservations I nevertheless bought a Python. The issue with the offset seating position is negligible in the python because the cockpit is very small compared to the size of the ship and sits dead center. It's almost like you're sitting in the middle and much less noticeable and pronounced to me as for example with the Cobra MK III or MK IV. It's a pretty decent ship.

I started a 6,000 ly exploration tour basically on a whim. I got a VIP passenger mission that wanted me to go to a Point 6,000 ly out and I said: 'Why not?'

I probably should have waited until I had a ship with a better jump range than 20 ly but I'm already 3,500 ly towards my Destination.

Shockingly a lot of the systems along my path (250+ jumps so far) have already been discovered. I would have expected there to be more undiscovered Systems given how vast the ED galaxy is.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 03, 2017, 05:13:54 AM
There actually are.  However, there's not that many missions.  You're probably plodding a very, very weary path.

If you just meander about a bit, you'll probably find tons of unmarked ones.  Do what I did - get your ASP and just point at something on the map that interests you and say 'There'.  You'll find something to claim.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on May 03, 2017, 06:41:04 AM
I probably should have waited until I had a ship with a better jump range than 20 ly but I'm already 3,500 ly towards my Destination.


Depending on your fit you may not be missing much, I get ~26ly on ky Python with G5 increased FSD range with my 6A scoop, 5A Prismatic shield and 'mostly cargo racks' fit

If you want jump range (and a decent passenger cabin) you are looking at an Asp


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 03, 2017, 06:52:28 AM
When you have shields is an AFMU really needed?  Next explorer ship will probably be a Diamondback Explorer ( can get to 35 a 40 ly range) or my Asp but I can't really fit an AFMU there

DBX has gotten a lot better since the recent patch


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 03, 2017, 07:43:01 AM
Is an AFMU really ever needed ?  It's an edge device for me.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on May 03, 2017, 08:11:54 AM
AMFU is nice if your trip takes you thru multiple pulsar/neutron star systems (especially when you are bored out of your mind from the tedium and fail to notice where you are jumping).  :ye_gods:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: cironian on May 03, 2017, 08:24:40 AM
Heat damage (from when you drop in the middle of triple sun systems and such) doesnt care about your fancy shields. Bring an AFMU.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on May 03, 2017, 09:37:00 AM
The damage when you slam into a star or if you overheat is not affected by shields, and those are your chief dangers in the big black, and you might be grally good at flying but its another thing when you are at your 200th jump that day and bored.

When I went to Jacques Station my Asp had no shields at all. I also was using downgraded thrusters and power grid to save weight. It basically was a tin can with a jump engine and fuel scoop. I had 2 AFMUs as one can repair the other.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 03, 2017, 11:06:45 AM
You're all worthless and weak.

 :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 05, 2017, 02:13:04 AM
Anyone tried Mobius PvE (https://elitepve.com/page/join) (private group with 36,000 members) to play this as an MMO without the murder hobos?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 05, 2017, 02:56:51 AM
Yes.  I posted about it upwards.  I'm a member and it's great.  TONS of fucking people, all really nice.

I can't recommend it enough.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on May 05, 2017, 03:01:42 AM
Yes.  I posted about it upwards.  I'm a member and it's great.  TONS of fucking people, all really nice.

I can't recommend it enough.


I've never had any problems with other players while on Mobius PVE.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 05, 2017, 10:36:11 AM
So as a follow up to our discussion I'd like to present a few recent threads on reddit to you that sort of sum up the state the game is currently in.

Beginner and getting ganked by Anacondas and Pythons. Why? (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/69b90c/beginner_and_getting_ganked_by_anacondas_and/)

A recent nerwcomer describes his experiences starting off in the beginner area of the game. Quote: "I started playing yesterday, but for some reason it's the 3rd time I get ganked in safe space (most recently, LHS 3447) by players with massive ships. The latest example was some douchebag with an Anaconda who disabled my thrusters (I had no valuable cargo), would not answer to any of my messages, and after 5 minutes of me trying to get any answer out of him he just said "STOP" when I tried rebooting my ship. He then destroyed me when my thrusters were repaired"

The thread includes the same old recommendations like forgoing open and only play solo or in private groups, justifications why ganking newcomers is somehow a legitimate playstyle and an argument why the newcomer area is not a 'safe space'. It also has a general air of "Well it is the way it is and you just have to deal with it" resignation which makes me sad. The general advice is basically "Get the fuck out of the starting area and either join a private group or play solo".

Sandro Sammarco on "Report Crimes Off": A New Hope? (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/69e766/sandro_sammarco_on_report_crimes_off_a_new_hope/) and Sandro Sammarco, lead designer, talks about possible Crime & Punishment improvements, including punishing combat loggers (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/698b36/sandro_sammarco_lead_designer_talks_about/)

Crime and Punishment is somewhat of an obsession of the hardcore E:D crowd. It's not what you might think (finding a system that punishes assholes for being antisocial dicks) though. It's metagaming and theorycrafting mostly done by PVPers and guys that desperately want to be space pirates as a way to incorporate their idea of how the game should work into the core game mechanics. The second thread makes it absolutely clear what they are really pissed off about at the moment - combat logging. Read the OP, most of the questions and answers quoted deal with this issue and how it should be punished.

Take notice how engaged the lead designer is in the discussion about a possible "karma system" and how there's not a single item on his list that deals with anti social issues like ganking or how to make the experience more rewarding for normal players. He's engaging them in this discussion and laying out a system of bad karma and good karma depending on in game actions that at no point accounts for intent, ability, seniority or people deliberately gaming the system/being assholes and therefore would punish all people equally even for actions by other players. The Pro PVP crowd in the same way as the casual player who lunges for the "logout" button to protect his meager Cobra and potentially a weeks or months long investment from an asshole in a Cutter.

It actually quite fascinating how they lead him in the debate and steer it away from any debate about the core design problem namely how to deal with assholes or how to make the system more balanced or even how to add more content and flesh out existing systems. Even repeated mentions that this system might unfairly ban people or punish them for antisocial behaviour of others seems to faze him. He's more obsessed with the idea of the system being automated and controlled "in game" (hence functioning without GM or support intervention) than finding something that actually has a chance of working.

Itz would be kind of funny if we'd still be in the year 2000 and Trammel was still a thing but for 2017 it's sort of sad and depressing to see.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on May 05, 2017, 12:44:18 PM
So as a follow up to our discussion I'd like to present a few recent threads on reddit to you that sort of sum up the state the game is currently in.

Beginner and getting ganked by Anacondas and Pythons. Why? (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/69b90c/beginner_and_getting_ganked_by_anacondas_and/)

A recent nerwcomer describes his experiences starting off in the beginner area of the game. Quote: "I started playing yesterday, but for some reason it's the 3rd time I get ganked in safe space (most recently, LHS 3447) by players with massive ships. The latest example was some douchebag with an Anaconda who disabled my thrusters (I had no valuable cargo), would not answer to any of my messages, and after 5 minutes of me trying to get any answer out of him he just said "STOP" when I tried rebooting my ship. He then destroyed me when my thrusters were repaired"

The thread includes the same old recommendations like forgoing open and only play solo or in private groups, justifications why ganking newcomers is somehow a legitimate playstyle and an argument why the newcomer area is not a 'safe space'. It also has a general air of "Well it is the way it is and you just have to deal with it" resignation which makes me sad. The general advice is basically "Get the fuck out of the starting area and either join a private group or play solo".

Sandro Sammarco on "Report Crimes Off": A New Hope? (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/69e766/sandro_sammarco_on_report_crimes_off_a_new_hope/) and Sandro Sammarco, lead designer, talks about possible Crime & Punishment improvements, including punishing combat loggers (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/698b36/sandro_sammarco_lead_designer_talks_about/)

Crime and Punishment is somewhat of an obsession of the hardcore E:D crowd. It's not what you might think (finding a system that punishes assholes for being antisocial dicks) though. It's metagaming and theorycrafting mostly done by PVPers and guys that desperately want to be space pirates as a way to incorporate their idea of how the game should work into the core game mechanics. The second thread makes it absolutely clear what they are really pissed off about at the moment - combat logging. Read the OP, most of the questions and answers quoted deal with this issue and how it should be punished.

Take notice how engaged the lead designer is in the discussion about a possible "karma system" and how there's not a single item on his list that deals with anti social issues like ganking or how to make the experience more rewarding for normal players. He's engaging them in this discussion and laying out a system of bad karma and good karma depending on in game actions that at no point accounts for intent, ability, seniority or people deliberately gaming the system/being assholes and therefore would punish all people equally even for actions by other players. The Pro PVP crowd in the same way as the casual player who lunges for the "logout" button to protect his meager Cobra and potentially a weeks or months long investment from an asshole in a Cutter.

It actually quite fascinating how they lead him in the debate and steer it away from any debate about the core design problem namely how to deal with assholes or how to make the system more balanced or even how to add more content and flesh out existing systems. Even repeated mentions that this system might unfairly ban people or punish them for antisocial behaviour of others seems to faze him. He's more obsessed with the idea of the system being automated and controlled "in game" (hence functioning without GM or support intervention) than finding something that actually has a chance of working.

Itz would be kind of funny if we'd still be in the year 2000 and Trammel was still a thing but for 2017 it's sort of sad and depressing to see.

It's a boon for the dev team though. They really don't have to do shit to the actual core game. Keep everything stable and add in some player-driven karma system - the game runs itself and they collect the moneys.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 05, 2017, 04:45:24 PM
Jeff you are obsessed with who you think are sociopaths and all that. I think the system DOES need changes so combat logging becomes impossible and being a ganker brings on you severe -in game, automated- consequences. Personally I have NEVER played the role of a ganker or a PK, never. But I love games with open PvP and all and I know I am not alone. "Sociopaths" add something to my choice to play games with open PvP and things would be extremely boring *for me* without them. Then again,

a) it's great great great that FD added the Solo and Group function.
b) the system as it is now it is NOT OK. It needs to be reworked so the choice of attacking an innocent players brings actual negative consequences and cannot be gamed around.

Everything else seems to be your well known hate for a behaviour that as despising as it would be in actual life, *in a game* can be pretty cool to the point that yes it can be considered content. Again, the main issue is that at the moment the system is broken and does not punish nor discourages griefers in any way, and neither rewards players who oppose them.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on May 05, 2017, 04:52:06 PM
What's combat logging?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on May 05, 2017, 05:17:08 PM
Its logging out in the middle of a fight before the PKer orgasms all over your ass destroys your ship. Probably bullshit if it's in the middle of a duel, completely understandable if you're in a cobra getting shot at by an Anaconda.

If they introduce some kind of karma system it will be gamed to fuck no matter what. Oh no I got attacked by 5 of my alt accounts over and over to store up karma. Its a shining example of forum PVP by a small loud minority.

I hadn't heard of that PVE group. Might check it out


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on May 05, 2017, 05:55:09 PM
What's combat logging?


Killing the game's process so you just go poof when a ganker or NPC is about to destroy your ship.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on May 05, 2017, 06:14:20 PM
Better known as the ultimate cloaking device.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on May 05, 2017, 10:53:22 PM
Its logging out in the middle of a fight before the PKer orgasms all over your ass destroys your ship. Probably bullshit if it's in the middle of a duel, completely understandable if you're in a cobra getting shot at by an Anaconda.
I thought that was a solved problem since, uh, EverQuest*? :headscratch: :facepalm:


* Which kept your character in-game for a few minutes after being disconnected so you could still die from mobs, etc.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on May 05, 2017, 11:51:55 PM
Probably what the "killing the ED Process" circumvents, as Pennilenko said.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on May 06, 2017, 12:24:57 AM
Isn't there a central server keeping state in MP?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on May 06, 2017, 01:29:27 AM
Isn't there a central server keeping state in MP?


A lot of the work in Elite is done P2P instead of being centralized to servers since there's quite a bit of it compared to more traditional MMOs (or so they've said). I'm also sure that the fact that E:D is a buy to play game with a relatively modest budget isn't a small factor when it comes to trying to keep the infrastructure light.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 06, 2017, 01:54:40 AM
I need to get into combat more now.  I hate combat.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 06, 2017, 05:04:33 AM
What's combat logging?


Killing the game's process so you just go poof when a ganker or NPC is about to destroy your ship.

Not just that. What I hate about combat logging is that it's used by the griefers themselves whenever they finally meet someone who can fight back.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 06, 2017, 05:34:03 AM
Everything else seems to be your well known hate for a behaviour that as despising as it would be in actual life, *in a game* can be pretty cool to the point that yes it can be considered content. Again, the main issue is that at the moment the system is broken and does not punish nor discourages griefers in any way, and neither rewards players who oppose them.

Obsessed? Maybe. I'd call it "weirdly fascinated" myself. I don't really suffer from it because I generally stick to Solo or Private Groups and don't really need or miss interacting with other players. Especially since the game doesn't offer you all that much on that front anyway. The one-off encounter in Open with such dicks doesn't put me on tilt enough to be obsessed, I think. It reinforces my belief that you should avoid Open like the plague and stick to Solo or PGs and let the inhabitants of the little island called Open duke it out amongst themselves Lord of the Flies style though.

It's just that we're 20 years post UO and EverQuest and yet companies designing massive multiplayer games still make the exact same mistakes and try to fix them with the same exact mechanics that proved to not be working two decades ago.

I've never seen a game that has PvE and PvP elements that not devolved into a dysfunctional "survival of the people with the most in game hours" anarchy of people out-cunting each other. PvP eventually bleeds over into all other aspects of the game and eventually affects all players on a server, even those who really don't want to engage in it. You have the 1% of dicks to thank for that because that's all it takes to fuck up the experience of everyone else. It's such a problem that most games tend to segregate PvE and PvP systems and players from each other from the get go because it seems to be the only solution that seems to be working.

If I had to take a guess then I'd reckon that the people we're talking about are probably making up less than 1% of the actual player base and that we're talking about a few hundred people at most. Yet they fucked it up so completely for everyone else that the standing recommendation for new players is to avoid Open entirely and that people playing in private groups probably outnumber the playerbase in Open by a significant amount.

This brings me to the core of the issue I have with the current direction of the game. The experience is hostile to new players because people set up shop in the starting area to gank new players and no one is stopping them. This is bad. Secondly the hardcore PvP crowd is actively lobbying for the abolishing of Solo and Private Group features because the only players that seem to be left in Open are them and other Gankers and they have no one else to harrass anymore. Their solution to the fact that most people have long since fucked off to Solo and PGs is to make FDev force them into Open by limiting the choices players have when not playing Open or preferably by ending both options completely. Also by giving players even less choices to not engage them. This is also bad. Thirdly the lead design team seems to be listening to them and seems to find nothing odd about the fact that most people playing their massive online game tend to not want to play it in online mode. This is especially bad.

It's as if the WoW PvP crowd demanded from Blizzard to end PvE servers and - even though PvE players outnumber PvP players by quite a significant margin - Blizzard actively contemplating that move.

I really like E:D but with the way things are moving this game has no future to speak of because it actively discourages new players, alienates mostz of the existing playerbase and doesn't seem to progress in a significant way.

TL;DR: The PvP crowd can do whatever they want but when they try to fuck with Solo and PG play options I get angry.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 06, 2017, 05:51:14 AM
I'm now on my way back to the bubble.

When I get back I will have travelled about 14,000 ly and probably visited more than 600 systems.

So far I have found not one system that hasn't been visited by another player previously. Sure most of the planets may lack the "First discovered by x" tag but as soon as there is a water or earth like world or anything else that's interesting or is worth something as exploration data you see that it has already been tagged by another player.

This is fascinating yet also weirdly off putting. I get honestly excited every time I find a system with an interesting feature or a cool earth like or water world and literally every time I saw a "CMDR x was here" tag. That swing from being overly excited to being somewhat disappointed is harsh.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on May 06, 2017, 06:04:29 AM
I'm now on my way back to the bubble.

When I get back I will have travelled about 14,000 ly and probably visited more than 600 systems.

So far I have found not one system that hasn't been visited by another player previously. Sure most of the planets may lack the "First discovered by x" tag but as soon as there is a water or earth like world or anything else that's interesting or is worth something as exploration data you see that it has already been tagged by another player.

This is fascinating yet also weirdly off putting. I get honestly excited every time I find a system with an interesting feature or a cool earth like or water world and literally every time I saw a "CMDR x was here" tag. That swing from being overly excited to being somewhat disappointed is harsh.

If you go to a fixed point of interest that's a long way from the bubble I'd recommend taking a few hundred lightyear detour "up or down" before starting to actually plot the course to the destination. This will put you off the beaten path in most cases (at least in my experience).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 06, 2017, 09:31:17 AM
Scott Manley showed an external player driven (scrubs data from players) map add on during his last ED stream he uses to plot the course through the Formaldine Rift. The map highlights systems players have already visited and it's actually a lot.

I get that it is a bit deceptive because there's probably still millions of systems that are unexplored but I was surprised by just how much of the galaxy in game has already been covered by players.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: cironian on May 06, 2017, 10:58:08 AM
Scott Manley showed an external player driven (scrubs data from players) map add on during his last ED stream he uses to plot the course through the Formaldine Rift. The map highlights systems players have already visited and it's actually a lot.

I get that it is a bit deceptive because there's probably still millions of systems that are unexplored but I was surprised by just how much of the galaxy in game has already been covered by players.

Check the exploration heat map at http://en.ed-board.net/?m=explore

There's tons of unexplored space, but the direct routes between the hot spots are high traffic.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 06, 2017, 02:20:05 PM
Mining! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp_DpZmY8Cg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 06, 2017, 04:12:59 PM
Sounds about right


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 06, 2017, 07:40:06 PM
Holy hell, that exploration trip was enough to pay for an Anaconda.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 06, 2017, 09:24:31 PM
Scott Manley showed an external player driven (scrubs data from players) map add on during his last ED stream he uses to plot the course through the Formaldine Rift. The map highlights systems players have already visited and it's actually a lot.

I get that it is a bit deceptive because there's probably still millions of systems that are unexplored but I was surprised by just how much of the galaxy in game has already been covered by players.

In 2015, Elite Dangerous's playerbase was visiting 17,585 new systems every day (732 per hour, 12 per minute). At that rate it was going to take players 150,895 years to explore the entire galaxy. I imagine that with the engineers and Colonia and passenger missions and so on, this has exponentially increased, but there is still a massive amount unexplored.

In the original Elite, there were eight galaxies. The lore in Elite Dangerous may be leading towards the discovery of Raxxla, a planet in the Milky Way with a gateway to other universes (mentioned in the lore of the original game).

Either way, I can't see the game running out of exploration to do.

P.S. Each to their own, but I can't bring myself to watch Scott Manley. Too irritating. I regularly watch Obsidian Ant (best radio voice in the universe) and The Yamiks (3 dick jokes per second).



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 07, 2017, 07:06:50 AM
Obsidian Ant's radio voice is too relaxing for me to listen to when I need to not plunge into fiery balls of hydrogen plasma. I also watch Manley for Kerbal Space Program and he has an Euro friendly streaming schedule.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 07, 2017, 11:36:32 AM
Holy hell, that exploration trip was enough to pay for an Anaconda.

Whut ?

Fuck me.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 07, 2017, 12:45:46 PM
10 Million for the passenger mission and 75 Million from exploration data for 500+ systems. (14,000ly in total) If I trade in my Asp or my Python I have enough for a Conda. Best system was 4.9 Million in value.

The revamp of the exploration data payouts in 2.3 has made it much more lucrative.

A run to the core and back could potentially net you enough to pay for a conda without trading in your existing ship.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 08, 2017, 02:10:44 AM
I know I probably don't have to tell you :  DO NOT TRADE IN.

Just wait until you can actually purchase.  I made that mistake far too often 'levelling up'.

Also, that's some scary ass money making shit.  I will admit that recently stamping my name on a whole system got me 2.5, so I should have figured it out.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 08, 2017, 03:44:06 AM
I won't. Trading in is always a stupid idea. It is not that hard to make money anyway.

I sold about 10 to 12 pages of data. A 1000 ly plot was between 55 and 78 jumps depending on density (the Python I used had a max. jump range of 19.8 ly) and my itinary was about 14,000 ly in total (took a little detour on my way back). So something between 500 and 600 scanned systems seems about right. The biggest payout was one system with 4.5 million credits + exploration bonus for previously undiscovered stuff and that was probably only one or maybe two planets I actually bothered to scan. The rebalancing of exploration payouts in 2.3 has pushed earnings by quite a lot. I'd expected about 1/3 to 1/2 of the payout I actually got. Most systems I just "honked" at. I only ever bothered to scan a planet if it looked like a water world or an earth like world and only ever scanned one star. (A Wolf-Rayes type)

At the end I had a module integrity of 97%, a hull integrity of 98% and had run out of all of my heatsinks. I also had worked through most of my Youtube and Netflix backlog. The trip took me probably 1 1/2 to 2 hours per 1,000 ly chunk. You do the math.

After I returned home I went and bought a DBX and kitted it out for exploration (because I'm clearly insane). Both scanners. everything D-rated except A-rated FSD, A-rated power plant (because of better heat management) and a 4-A fuel scoop, vehicle bay and AFMU. No space for a cargo rack or passenger cabin though. In total this cost me about 12 million with a 400,000 rebuy.

That thing has an unengineered jump range of 35.6 ly or about 8 ly more than the Asp Explorer. With engineering you could potentially push it to 55 or maybe even 60 ly (FSD range and everything else optimized for weight). If you forego the shield generator probably even more. After the changes made to the DBX in 2.2 or 2.3 it's probably much better value for exploration than the Asp which will run you almost twice that amount for less jump range.

Only downside is the fuel scoop. The maximum size you can fit on a DBX is a level 4 scoop, you could fit a Level 6 scoop on an AspX though.

So galaxy round trip next. Far side of the galaxy and return via Sag A* and Colonia. I've got a lot of Netflix to catch up on.

[edit: typos]


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 08, 2017, 03:50:52 AM
That's interesting about the DBX, I did not know that and I should have.

I may spend some moolah on one tonight.

I have a lot of Quince Moolah just hanging around unspent. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 08, 2017, 04:04:09 AM
Downside: No cargo space or space for a passenger compartment if you go with an AFMU. Also scooping will take longer because of the 4-A scoop vs. the 6-A scoop you could fit on the Asp (but it's also a lot of money just for that). The DBX also can't fit first class passenger cabins (maximum compartment level is 4)

So for long range passenger or cargo hauling or as multi role the Asp is better. You can A-rate everything on the DBX though and still hit 50+ ly of jump range so the DBX is probably the better pure exploration ship.

That's interesting about the DBX, I did not know that and I should have.

In 2.3 they changed the DBX to include one additional size 2 slot and they made it lighter


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on May 08, 2017, 02:22:25 PM
They really REALLY amped the payouts for exploration a few weeks ago, about a week after I finished my 20,000 trip and got 30 mill for it, including a slew of Neutron and Black hole first discoveries. I was ever so slightly pissed off about that.

But congratulations nonetheless.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 08, 2017, 04:52:40 PM
Data collected before 2.3 wasn't upgraded to the new rates so you sadly wouldn't have profited from it even if you had waited. You would have needed to start your trip after 2.3 had hit servers.

On another note. I should have sold the data at Felicity Farseers place. Unlocking engineers seems to be a huge pain.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 09, 2017, 08:07:28 AM
Passenger mission payouts are weird.

On the one hand you have missions where you travel thousands of light years one way that pay out 1 or 2 million or "go 22,000 ly for 10 mil" and on the other you have a 3 stop tourist trip of about 100 ly each to three different tourist beacons in the bubble for 8 million.

So a week of travel vs an hour of travel for basically the same payout.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 09, 2017, 08:28:37 AM
Yes.  My highest thus far was 10 million for a 55ly hop.  She was a Criminal, but a smooth one.  So Annie ended up OK.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 09, 2017, 08:52:24 AM
Goddamn


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 10, 2017, 04:01:57 PM
My thrusters are able to push me to 300 m/s in a couple of seconds and let me turn my ship quickly enough to probably pull above 10 g. They are somehow ineffective against earth level gravity.

A rated thrusters couldn't pull me out of a dive 2 km above ground level. Lost my shields and half of my hull integrity when I hit the ground and another 5% or so trying to land.

That seems a bit silly actually.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on May 10, 2017, 05:16:23 PM
My thrusters are able to push me to 300 m/s in a couple of seconds and let me turn my ship quickly enough to probably pull above 10 g. They are somehow ineffective against earth level gravity.

A rated thrusters couldn't pull me out of a dive 2 km above ground level. Lost my shields and half of my hull integrity when I hit the ground and another 5% or so trying to land.

That seems a bit silly actually.
Flying Anacondas and T9s has not given me any trouble in a wide range of gravity. You have to keep in mind your descent speed, don't be afraid to turn off flight assist and coast ass down and feather right at the end. Also four pips to engines in higher gravity makes a huge difference.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on May 10, 2017, 05:26:54 PM
My thrusters are able to push me to 300 m/s in a couple of seconds and let me turn my ship quickly enough to probably pull above 10 g. They are somehow ineffective against earth level gravity.

A rated thrusters couldn't pull me out of a dive 2 km above ground level. Lost my shields and half of my hull integrity when I hit the ground and another 5% or so trying to land.

That seems a bit silly actually.
Flying Anacondas and T9s has not given me any trouble in a wide range of gravity. You have to keep in mind your descent speed, don't be afraid to turn off flight assist and coast ass down and feather right at the end. Also four pips to engines in higher gravity makes a huge difference.

Docking.
Computer.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 11, 2017, 03:13:56 AM
Im not talking about docking or landing at outposts.

I was coming out of a glide path at full speed and reversed direction (basically pointing up) at about 2 km above the surface. Full throttle, with 4 pips in engines and a rated thrusters I still hit the ground so hard that I lost my fully charged shields and 55 % of my hull integrity. This doesn't seem right. It's no issue on worlds with lower gravity. It's usually not even a close call. Somehow though 1.2g is so much gravity that I can't land my ship from hovering (forward thrust 0) by using the "F" key for thrusting downward, without taking damage or hitting the ground so hard to bounce off again.

Minor gripe, though.

I'm no astronaut but E:D ships put out such insane levels of thrust that you can barrel roll an 800 ton ship and that you can pull off insane bank and dodge maneouvers inside a tightly packed asteroid field with the weight and size equivalent of an aircraft carrier. Gravity - being the cruel mistress she's known for - somehow trumps that though.

The way ships handle under gravity seems and feels odd. Those ships should be suited to handle landing at planetary bodies up to earth gravity without hassle.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 11, 2017, 04:25:52 AM
That doesn't sound right.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 11, 2017, 05:24:25 AM
"High G" worlds are generally wonky in Elite Dangerous. Everything above 1 g is weird. Most ships can't even land on worlds above 1.5 or 2 g or take severe damage trying to land. There are even threads about "what's the highest gravity world you could still land on" and generally 2.3 g is difficult and risky.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 11, 2017, 09:33:32 PM
Game is 33% off at Humble. (https://www.humblebundle.com/store/elite-dangerous-commander-deluxe-edition) Commander Deluxe Edition is base game and Horizons, with 18 paint jobs for various ships, for $40.

Frontier is apparently fine with multiboxing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUI6T724mqw) (which can even be done on the same PC if powerful enough). Multicrew gives you an extra pip, so there's something to think about. Or complain about 'pay to win' about.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 12, 2017, 12:36:01 AM
Frontier is apparently fine with multiboxing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUI6T724mqw)

Of course they would be.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 12, 2017, 12:53:53 AM
I'm fine with it too. If someone wants to multibox to be crew on their own ship to get an extra pip, fair play to them.  I literally have zero fucks to give about this shit anymore.

That said, I think I got the Deluxe pack back in the day and, frankly, I felt a little ripped off.  The Commanders Pack is a huge waste of money unless they've changed the contents since.  Paintjobs for ships you'll never use....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 12, 2017, 01:05:53 AM
But you're not paying for it. Elite Dangerous is reduced to $20 at Humble. Horizons is reduced to $20. Deluxe, which is both of those plus the paint jobs that would otherwise be a rip-off,  is reduced to $40.

I agree with you about the multi boxing. I don't care. And if you run a game with no subscription fee, why would you stop people buying second accounts anyway.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 12, 2017, 02:15:28 AM
Fair enough if it's a freebie, but I stand by the point that you won't use it.  I bought a Viper specifically to give it a paintjob and then thought 'what the fuck am I doing ?'

Speaking of Multicrew, does anyone here actually wanna try it out ?  I really want to but don't wanna chance the 'retard' factor.

If you see me online and need a Gunner or anything, pop me a message.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Endie on May 12, 2017, 08:18:26 AM
I bought a Viper specifically to give it a paintjob and then thought 'what the fuck am I doing ?'

Wow are you trying to take the food from out of Croberts' mouth?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 14, 2017, 07:38:11 AM
Got a level 4 FSD range upgrade on my Diamondback Explorer (Grasshopper). Fully A-rated it now has a 45.6 ly range. I think you could push this past 60 if you went all out gutting and engineering it. For me it's high enough though to explore comfortably. By comparison my AspX only gets 42 ly and that is with a level 5 FSD upgrade with a decent roll and d-rated components.

In the bubble I have a fully upgraded Python. So the Asp is sidelined for now.

Recent community goal was insane. Frontier extended it by two tiers and it still finished with 4 days left.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 17, 2017, 10:00:57 AM
Interesting Eurogamer article about the state of ED. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-05-11-the-state-of-elite-dangerous.

Interesting tidbit (no I'm not holding a grudge) "Harry Potter, aka British college student Josh Chamberlain, believes players are losing interest in Elite Dangerous simply because Frontier takes too long to make significant changes to the game, and when it does, many of the features it adds fall flat" :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on May 17, 2017, 11:25:27 AM
PS4 release was reported in Q2. Release date is on the deck for June 27th.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 17, 2017, 07:24:57 PM
As Frontier has made an official decal for Canonn Research (player group that was subject of recent community goal), Harry Potter asked (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/6bo7e5/asked_support_for_an_ingame_decal_for_sdc/) Frontier tech support if they could do one for Smiling Dog Crew.

They sent him this:

(http://i.imgur.com/kpBkO1D.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 22, 2017, 04:28:24 AM
I farmed the materials I needed to try for a few Level 5 FSD range rolls. With a very decent roll my DBX now has a jump range of 49.05 light years. Fully A-rated (well, except sensors and life support). This cuts the average number of jumps needed for a 1000 ly from 65 to 22.

It makes exploring suddenly feel very different. A 3000 ly stint to visit a few nebulae and return now feels like a short trip and it makes the prospect of travelling 10,000+ ly to visit Colonia or Sagittarius A* much less daunting.

I'm now confident that you could push the jump range of the DBX to 58 or even 60 light years if you d-rate it, strip it down and engineer every component, making it the second best in max jump range after the Anaconda (which you culd theoretically push to 62+ ly). I won't do that 49ly with a-rated components is more than enough for what I Need and it means that I can comfortably travel in this ship without making any compromises.

It also runs exceptionally cool and feels more nimble than te Asp (which handles like a bucket with d-rated thrusters). With unneccessary modules turned off the DBX runs at 18% heat and you can almost park it in the corona of a sun, scoop and charge FSD at the same time without overheating.

I'm currently half way to Sag A* and don't miss my Asp Explorer at all.

Additionally I recently got an invite to Möbius and I'm still getting used to encountering other Players after playing Solo for so Long.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on May 23, 2017, 01:29:02 PM
Interesting Eurogamer article about the state of ED. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-05-11-the-state-of-elite-dangerous.

Interesting tidbit (no I'm not holding a grudge) "Harry Potter, aka British college student Josh Chamberlain, believes players are losing interest in Elite Dangerous simply because Frontier takes too long to make significant changes to the game, and when it does, many of the features it adds fall flat" :oh_i_see:

true on both counts. they spend a lot of time and effort designing a new mechanic and then it arrives and ... there's no hook, no cohesive mechanical implementation. it disappoints.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 24, 2017, 02:28:23 AM
Very true.  They need to work on things being 'sticky' in a way that they're not at the moment.

There are quite a few games like that right now, I think it's the way a lot of them are being developed.


Jeff, I love your 50ly DBX.  I want one.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 24, 2017, 02:37:07 AM
I don't necessarily disagree. It's mostly "an inch deep and a mile wide".

I don't think that Frontier has set aside a large team for Elite though. If I had to guess and from previous knowledge I'd say that FDev makes money from their other titles (Planet Coaster, their Edutainment products etc.) and that the playerbase and revenue stream from Elite only justifies a small team to keep things going. I guess if it weren't a "pet project" for FDev and especially Braben and they'd simply look at the numbers then E:D development would have been cancelled by now. They make significantly more from their other games.

There's one aspect where there is a fundamental disconnect between the vocal fan base and FDev though. I don't think that FDev sees Elite as an MMO game. The whole underlying design of systems and infrastructure - including the networking setup with small instances and peer-to-peer communication - points to this game being small scale multiplayer. I think they never expected the interactions in the game developing in the directions they did.

That's not intended as an apology. They should have expected that people backing their Kickstarter would have been fans of the previous games given that E:D doesn't even include all of the features of for example the Frontier games or that people would want to explore the massive galaxy. I don't think they have an idea or the resources necessary to cater to the demands of their fan base because it was never intended to be an MMO in the "classical" sense.

Thirdly their revenue model completely fell through. The seasons concept is dead, a significant number of players never purchased "Horizons" even though they still play the base game and I don't think that their ship kits and paint Jobs sell enough to Support further development of the game.

It's basically that their most rabid fans want a space MMO with a laundry list of features that includes everything and the kitchen sink while they actively oppose any attempt by FDev to open up revenue streams necessary for doing that. For a game the developer apparently never planned as a massive space MMO. So FDev neither has the systems in place, nor any ideas and concepts necessary and they also don't have a steady revenue stream or an idea how their business model should and can work going forward and therefore no means and probably also no interest to expand the Team in a way that would make this a possibility.

The Elite fan base is basically the opposite to Star citizen's fan base. They're still salty about a single ship (Cobra MK IV) being only available to pre order customers - even though it's shit. So Fdev wouldn't even be able to sell limited edition ships to people.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 24, 2017, 02:47:42 AM
Jeff, I love your 50ly DBX.  I want one.

With the 10% discount in Li Yong-Rui controlled systems it cost about 14 million credits on a 600k rebuy (including purchase price of the ship). All modules are a-rated, except sensors and life support and I have fitted a 4A fuel Scoop and a 4A AFMU and a SRV hangar. Means that I have no cargo space. If you stick to d-rated modules it's probably half of that.

The only engineered component is a level 5 FSD range upgrade which was the most annoying part because I first had to unlock Felicity Farseer and farm the materials necessary. Without the engineer upgrade the range would be 45 ly.

I'm now half way to Sag A*. Scooping takes a few seconds longer than with the ASP because the DBX can only fit a level 4 scoop while the ASP could potentially fit a level 6 scoop. The DBX runs much, much cooler though than my Asp.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 24, 2017, 05:11:17 AM
I've got the FSD stuff all unlocked as I used it on my other ships, notably the Asp.  That sounds quite cheap and I'm still swimming in money, so I'll probably grab myself one.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 24, 2017, 06:38:21 AM
It's definitely cheap enough to try it out and either Keep it or scrap it depending on whether you like it or not.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 24, 2017, 08:39:19 AM
There's a very vocal faction of E:D fans now that claim mission stacking in Quince is not simply a bug or a design flaw in FDevs mission system and that it should be considered an exploit instead including account bans for people doing it and taking away the credits earned.

Which means that playing the game and running missions is now considered to be an exploit since Quince is exposing one of the many design flaws of Elite's mission system.

- If the system is too far from populated space all mission triggers are generated in system (all missions start in Quince and end in Quince)
- if you accept multiple missions of the same type - with the exception of transport missions - only one mission is generated and all missions are triggered as complete if you complate that one mission.
- usually only one planet is designated as mission target for a certain type of mission

For example: If you stack surface scan missions that all go to the same system then only one mission target is generated and only one mission target is required to complete all missions.

This works anwhere not just in Quince. I did something similar in Wu Guinagi (stack 10 - 12 surface scan missions until mission limits are reached complete all by doing just one Mission)

If this is an exploit then just playing the game is.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 24, 2017, 08:45:58 AM
What's the beef ?  Why are these chaps feeling directly impacted ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 24, 2017, 12:53:24 PM
Something, something background simulation.

It's probably a "it took me a year to get to a Cutter and they get to do this in a week" situation.

Got bored and couldn't be arsed to engage with this silly argument


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on May 24, 2017, 06:25:36 PM
Its exactly the same as in every game. They don't want the rest of the world intruding on their elite status. In reality it doesn't matter a fuck if everyone in the world can fly a cutter if they want, but to these fuckers it means that THEY are not special anymore.

WHat they are doing is using exploits themselves, then closing those exploits so no-one else can get to their level.

I havent played this in a few weeks. not sure why I stopped .


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 25, 2017, 01:19:41 AM
My view is this :  This game has a solo mode.  They can get to FUCK with complaints about how 'our' game impacts on 'their' game.

RIGHT TO FUCK.

I bought my wee DBX (called 'Dervish') and it's nippy as fuck.  I don't really like flying it much, since it feels 'light', but you can't deny it can zip around the LY like fuck.  I have a 4 bay I need to fill with SOMETHING and given that I need Arsenic now, I'm guessing it's time to learn how to pilot an SRV.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 25, 2017, 02:14:30 AM
I called mine Grasshopper.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 25, 2017, 08:32:41 AM
Got to rank 5 FSD with Felicity, got bad rolls on the mats I'd gathered and ended up with a 41ly Asp. In frustration I rolled the rank 4 mats I'd accidentally gathered and got an amazing roll: now a 45ly Asp with only a rank 4 upgrade.

That's pretty pleasant, but I may put the FSD into a DBX and get out there too.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 28, 2017, 05:10:03 AM
Whinging seems to have worked. Quince is in lockdown yet again and tourist missions seem to be gone.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 30, 2017, 01:47:04 AM
The galactic core is really really beautiful. They way space lights up and is full of stars - also how the skybox gradually changes as you get closer - is really masterfully done. I don't know how realistic it is but I liked it a lot.

I'm now on the return trip from the core. When I return I will have travelled about 60 to 65,000 light years. Sag A* via Colonia and back with a few detours. I hope it will be enough to get me the rest of the way to Elite in exploration (I'm now at 41%). Probably not though because with the changes to exploration payouts FDev also changed the amount of exploration data you need to sell to get to max rank. (It's about double the amount: 300 million compared to 150 million before 2.3)

On my way to Colonia I scanned every star. I realized how pointless this is when I turned in the data. 2,000 - 3,000 credits per star (so about 4,500 max with first explorer's bonus) doesn't even remotely compare to the additional downtime nedded for the scan to complete. Finding just one black hole or neutron star or any sort of terraformable world is worth about twenty scans of main series stars.

Route finding is really, really annoying though. I get why they only allow 1,000 ly stints (route calculation is an NP complete type of problem so effort scales exponentially with the number of stops) but the galaxy map and route plotter lack some serious convenience features.

You have to be highly resistant to boredom though. The trip will have taken me about two weeks when I return and probably something about 40+ hours of actual play time. With basically nothing to do than watch glorfied loading screens and the occasional planet scan.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 30, 2017, 04:20:32 AM
Sounds fun.

 :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 30, 2017, 04:57:57 AM
It sort of is, actually. It could be more fun if FDev actually thought out Features to the end.

Navigation and route plotting could be greatly improved. Ability to plot out routes of more than 1000 ly. better filtering. Route plotting that takes your fuel range into account (Drops you at a scoopable star at your last or second to last junp before empty)

Decrease downtimes. reduce scan times, increase scan ranges. Make it so I can select the entry point in multi star Systems. (no one bothers to scan planets 100,000 ls away). Make it so scanning systems is actually worthwile Right now scanning anything other than WW and ELW is pointless. Give the galaxy more variety, more to see. (There are no accretion discs, no stellar dynamics like a black hole "eating" a star, no real pulsars etc.)

Make it so exploration doesn't take literal weeks, at least give me an easy "this is boring I want to get back to the bubble" mode. There should be a way to greatly increase jump ranges without resulting to bugs (using the jet of a Neutron star was a bug FDev left in because it is so popular.

There's be lots of opportunities and with less than 1% of the galaxy discovered still enough Options for everyone who wants to explore the galaxy.

Right now the biggest drawback is actually the time Investment (7 to 10 hours of Play time to get to Colonia) and that each jump to a new system adds a lot of downtime.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 30, 2017, 06:05:23 AM
Wait, the neutron star thing is a bug ?   surely not.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 30, 2017, 06:38:23 AM
The 300% range boost given by neutron stars was. It should have been 25% for both white dwarves and neutron stars. They kept the 300% because of popular demand.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 30, 2017, 07:07:31 AM
Ah, that makes sense.   I thought you meant the whole thing, which would be an awesome example of emergent behaviour.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 31, 2017, 12:36:01 AM
I found a trinary system yesterday that had 2 Earth like worlds and 4 terraformable water worlds. Plus a few terraformable high metal content worlds. All unexplored.

I christened it Jackpot system.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on May 31, 2017, 08:19:26 PM
man i want some screenshots of that shit


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 02, 2017, 01:04:56 AM
Players were mining a barnacle. A Thargoid ship flew in and appeared to refuel from the barnacle.

There are some Reddit threads (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/6errck/well_this_just_happend/) and a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8S-4Oq9Xvc).

Pleiades Sector OI-T C3-7
Planet A6
- 42.7793 -21.7215

Edit: You Know Who had first contact (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IPZ37NXwms) during a live stream.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 02, 2017, 01:27:02 AM
 :ye_gods:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 02, 2017, 05:13:28 AM
Harry Potter = Gaius Baltar confirmed


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on June 02, 2017, 06:02:43 AM
So they are actually centering the game around a single player/player group? That seems odd.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Endie on June 02, 2017, 07:28:45 AM
So they are actually centering the game around a single player/player group? That seems odd.

It looks like going to certain locations - of which we've just seen one, twice - and scanning or mining fires off that event, since H Potter and his wizard pals were there to see if they, too, could make it happen.  I kinda suspect that someone had some hints dropped of where to go and to be recording video in the first case, though.

It's super-impressive, though: I wish that the Eve team had built in the ability to script events like that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 02, 2017, 01:42:13 PM
Yeah I think HP was live streaming at a barnacle (when else would he be found there?) specifically because of early reports that people had triggered this event.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Torinak on June 02, 2017, 02:06:56 PM
Was that a special kickstarter reward? "For 50K, we focus the entire game around you, no matter how much of an asshole you are"

This is starting to sound like when Eve devs got caught helping certain corps cheat.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 02, 2017, 02:48:37 PM
Er, I'm saying it's NOT that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Endie on June 03, 2017, 12:54:32 AM
Was that a special kickstarter reward? "For 50K, we focus the entire game around you, no matter how much of an asshole you are"

This is starting to sound like when Eve devs got caught helping certain corps cheat.

In opposites world, yeah.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Torinak on June 03, 2017, 02:39:29 PM
Thanks for the clarification. I'm glad the devs aren't like that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 04, 2017, 10:45:21 PM
"Road to Riches" (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/6f8s82/road_to_riches/) - someone has mapped a route from the bubble, scanning 301 earth-like and terraformable water worlds in 241 systems within 200ly of the starting point, to generate exploration data worth 280 million credits (plus lots of faction/engineer standing). Aimed at helping new players make money, but could be useful for anyone.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 05, 2017, 01:56:49 AM
I'm liking that, though more for the final push to Elite Exploration.

I'm going to sort it once I've done my current Engineer Grind.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 05, 2017, 09:03:11 AM
I will use it to get the last 9% AI need to reach Elite explorer.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 05, 2017, 02:48:17 PM
Made it back to the bubble today.

Selling all of my exploration data made me 102 million credits and pushed me from 44% pioneer to 91% pioneer. I made quite a few first discoveries as well. Spent the saved credits on an Anaconda and a first set of upgrades. Visited the first 22 stars on the road to riches list for the final 20 million needed to get Elite Exploration. 283 million credits in total according to the in game stats.

I also used my explorer data to unlock a few permit locked systems as well. The last trip was about 65,000 ly and it took me about two weeks to get to Colonia, Sagittarius A* and back.

I don't think that I will do something like this again any time soon.

The Anaconda is a bit scary to handle still, considering the 10 mil rebuy and the fact that she seems to nearly scratch the mail slot.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 05, 2017, 03:51:30 PM
The Anaconda is a fucking con.

Seriously.

A Fucking Con.

Mine has spent most of the time in the garage.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 05, 2017, 04:32:28 PM
This thing will cost a Billion to upgrade completely. The 8A power plant alone cost me 138 Million credits.
So the con is probably that it's a huge money sink?

Handles like a bucket full of bricks in super cruise.

Nice touch: they added reverb to the voice and sound samples when you're on the Anaconda because of the huge bridge.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 06, 2017, 07:12:38 AM
I have all the bells and whistles for the Anaconda excepting the power plant that costs more than the ship.

It sits in a garage and I don't take it out because of the stupid rebuy cost and the fact it's a brick that you can barely get out of dock.

It can make 1.5 Million per trade run, but Elena can make more than that with passengers in half the time.  I daren't take it into combat because, you know, fuck that.

It's pish.  Everything I would do with it, I could do better with a nice wee python.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on June 06, 2017, 07:28:55 AM
I plan on using mine as a mining ship.  :drill:

Don't give me that look...

That's even if I pick it up on PS4... still pissed about that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 06, 2017, 07:30:43 AM
Trouble with that is that it's hugely, obscenely overkill for a miner.  My Type-7 is a perfect mining ship if I want some down time.

Lugging a fucking Anaconda around asteroids sounds like as much fun as lugging the wife around Amsterdam.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on June 06, 2017, 07:46:54 AM
Trouble with that is that it's hugely, obscenely overkill for a miner.  My Type-7 is a perfect mining ship if I want some down time.

Lugging a fucking Anaconda around asteroids sounds like as much fun as lugging the wife around Amsterdam.


Fuck you. I'm American. I'm going to chrome the shit out of it and give it some truck nuts just to let people know.  :why_so_serious:

But yeah... My goal is to make that work on my PS4. Enough firepower to lay pirates low and enough cargo hold to make me my buy back each trip. Platinum and Painite and so many limpets people will wonder. I want my ship to look like a fucking beekeeper while I am strip mining rocks.





Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 06, 2017, 09:42:38 AM
Lol

Fair enough.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 06, 2017, 09:52:14 AM
Since this is the Anaconda hater's club (est. 2016) can I ask why? Ass in why is the Anaconda the way it is?

Example. Who decided that the Conda needed that useless Military Slot that only fits hull reinforcement packages or shield cell Banks and nothing else?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on June 06, 2017, 11:42:51 AM
Lol

Fair enough.

On a serious note though... I just want to mine rock in an inappropriate ship. The limited time I messed around with the game on my old PC, I actually got a Coda just to try out and see how it flies. It was grueling stock. Mail slots felt like my first girlfriend and I'm not exactly sure how it makes it through each time. Turns are slightly better than the T-9cow but yeah... it does give a feeling of massive.

And I am definitely not ignorant to the fact that using this to mine rocks is going to be in the realm of the ministry of silly walks, especially on really oddball axis, fast rotating rocks. But I'm shooting to roleplay the crazy miner with the black lung who still smokes a pack a day.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 06, 2017, 12:19:49 PM
Since this is the Anaconda hater's club (est. 2016) can I ask why? Ass in why is the Anaconda the way it is?

Example. Who decided that the Conda needed that useless Military Slot that only fits hull reinforcement packages or shield cell Banks and nothing else?

RP - It's meant to be historically a naval ship.  Which is pretty wank.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 06, 2017, 12:29:27 PM
The actual in game reason is that perspectives are weird in E:D. The "mail slot" is actually large enough to comfortably fit all ships in height, with more than enough space. The width is so that two Federal Corvettes or two Cutters could pass each other on the green and red side without colliding, the only two ships not fitting "side to side" would be the Beluga (because of the wide tail fins) and the T9.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRYWlezRLE4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYOOXueUv5c

Vehicle sizes (Banana for Scale)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2uaRHFmBT4&t=29s

The first person perspective is so weird though that the mail slot always feels incredibly small even when you pass it in a sidewinder. Even though two dozen sidewinders could pass the slot in parallel comfortably.

The same goes for all other in game scenarios. Look at a resource extraction site for example, there's lots of NPC Cutters, Anacondas or T9's mining ore and watched from your point of view they don't seem to be huge or unable to maneuver in an asteroid belt. On cocjkpit perspective though the asteroid belt feels claustrophobic and you constantly fear to hit a big piecve of rock even in a small ship


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 08, 2017, 08:27:26 PM
I've been out on my first exploration adventure, in my 45 ly Asp Explorer. I took a "collect data" mission to The View, which is about 1500 ly to the "east" of the bubble, a direction that doesn't lead anywhere else important. I took a slightly skewed angle instead of heading in a straight line.

I just found and scanned my first fully unexplored system, about 1000 ly from Sol. And it had an Earth-like world!

I also found a system with two big, white ice worlds just 0.01 ls from each other (almost no distance apart). I've got a screenshot of them side-by-side, like two snowballs in space, with my red Asp in front. I'll post the screenshots and locations once I get back to the bubble.

I'm nearly at The View, where I'm supposed to do a landing for the passenger, apparently on a high-gravity planet with a neutron star. Thinking of turning back with my exploration data now, as claiming my first system and ELW is probably more important than risking a death out there :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on June 08, 2017, 10:20:49 PM
I just realized I haven't logged in since they buffed exploration payouts right after I only make 30 mill on a 20,000 LY trip. I guess I was seriously pissed about that deep down.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 08, 2017, 10:49:17 PM
I just realized I haven't logged in since they buffed exploration payouts right after I only make 30 mill on a 20,000 LY trip. I guess I was seriously pissed about that deep down.  :why_so_serious:

Bah, I arrived in Quince just as they put it on lockdown to nerf tourist mission stacking. And I paid full price for Horizons just before the 50% off sale. Still playing. But I'm sure 20,000 ly of space madness would hurt.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 09, 2017, 03:33:52 AM
Fortunately, I exploited the shit out of that pre-lockdown.

That said, I'm finding my interest in this slowly waning.  I think some things need to be easier and some things need to be a fuckload more interesting.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on June 09, 2017, 02:30:11 PM
I think some things need to be easier and some things need to be a fuckload more interesting.
When you say this, you really mean the whole game right?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on June 09, 2017, 08:28:15 PM
I utterly and completely ran out of things to upgrade. I have an Imperial Cutter in which every single component is rocking an unfathomably good or godlike engineering roll. I have a top-grade roll on a low emissions powerplant on an 8A that I can swap in from storage when the caps on shielding change and I no longer need an overcharged powerplant to run a spazillion shield boosters.

I have an almost perfect roll on the distributor, the 8A Prismatic Shielding, the hull, two large Efficient beams, a huge multicannon, and Dirty Drive Tuning. the ship is essentially as powerful as a ship can be in the game. I can say I have it, and I did it. But with multicrew being such a dud, what else do I do?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 10, 2017, 11:08:01 AM
"Road to Riches" (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/6f8s82/road_to_riches/) - someone has mapped a route from the bubble, scanning 301 earth-like and terraformable water worlds in 241 systems within 200ly of the starting point, to generate exploration data worth 280 million credits (plus lots of faction/engineer standing). Aimed at helping new players make money, but could be useful for anyone.

So, uh, yeah, I got bored and did the first 12 systems on his 'New (https://pastebin.com/hCf3iwe6)' list.  Just for fun.

10 Million.

That's, uh, that's really something.....

I mean, sure, for me, it's not a big deal, but you could really, really boost yourself into unconsciousness as a new player for a lot of cash.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 10, 2017, 11:12:08 AM
FUCK.

Decided to cash it in before I went to Dinner and forgot it gave you rep.

So now I'm almighty worshipped by 'Backhole Fuckholes with Nearest Space Station' rather than, I dunno, Sirius or something.

Fuck me, I'm stupid.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 10, 2017, 03:36:01 PM
I have an almost perfect roll on the distributor, the 8A Prismatic Shielding, the hull, two large Efficient beams, a huge multicannon, and Dirty Drive Tuning. the ship is essentially as powerful as a ship can be in the game. I can say I have it, and I did it. But with multicrew being such a dud, what else do I do?

Grief Harry Potter.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 10, 2017, 03:41:53 PM
I'm nearly at The View, where I'm supposed to do a landing for the passenger, apparently on a high-gravity planet with a neutron star. Thinking of turning back with my exploration data now, as claiming my first system and ELW is probably more important than risking a death out there :)

I decided to keep going, and made an attempt to land at The View. I had high-gravity flight under control and was gradually descending and lining up my 747-like landing technique, when suddenly... The planet sucked my Asp down onto it, my D-rated shield went offline and I bounced back up with 59% hull.

Heading for home. Screw you and your mission, famous explorer, I want to be a famous explorer too.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 10, 2017, 10:46:19 PM
High G worlds are seriously weird in ED.

One thing I never realized though because it's anti intuitive and I only know this because I watched the docking computer.

Thrusters are SYS not ENG. 4 Pips in engines will only increase speed and boost but not thrusters. Only 4 pips in SYS will. So for landing put 4 pips in SYS. Otherwise thrusters are too weak for High G worlds.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 10, 2017, 11:05:05 PM
FUCK.

Decided to cash it in before I went to Dinner and forgot it gave you rep.

So now I'm almighty worshipped by 'Backhole Fuckholes with Nearest Space Station' rather than, I dunno, Sirius or something.

Fuck me, I'm stupid.


I used my data to get all of the permits to permit locked systems due to reputation gains.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 11, 2017, 12:10:32 AM
Yeah, did another 12 planets, 14 million, handed in at Avik, got my Sirius permit.

It's all good, I was just fucked off at the rookie mistake.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 11, 2017, 12:45:31 AM
I'm pissed off about all the modular terminals I sold at stations now that I now what Gwent needs to be unlocked...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 11, 2017, 11:05:16 AM
Yeah.   That's all I have to say about that.   :oh_i_see:

Elite needs a stash tab.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 11, 2017, 07:25:02 PM
I just found and scanned my first fully unexplored system, about 1000 ly from Sol. And it had an Earth-like world!

I also found a system with two big, white ice worlds just 0.01 ls from each other (almost no distance apart). I've got a screenshot of them side-by-side, like two snowballs in space, with my red Asp in front. I'll post the screenshots and locations once I get back to the bubble.

The snowball twins... these were both big rocky ice worlds, just 0.01 ls from each other, about 800 ly from the bubble.

(http://i.imgur.com/Xwn800R.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/2RVFW42.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/91ffug4.png)




Further along, my first full system discovery, an interesting mix including an earth-like world, only about 1000 ly from the bubble.

(http://i.imgur.com/KM4x1BS.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/9jE6DYK.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/2Vw784m.jpg)



(http://i.imgur.com/ZfEnhkk.png)




Made sure I went for a mining drive on the sole landable rock.

(http://i.imgur.com/XAiHvkM.jpg)


And reached the big blue planet at the end, dreaming it was a massive water world. Gas giant, of course.

(http://i.imgur.com/6ZGadFo.jpg)


(http://i.imgur.com/OIM8puf.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 12, 2017, 01:09:33 AM
SJMV ?  That's kinda minimalist.   :grin:

Lovely pics though.  I seriously love people who bring back the holiday snaps for us.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 12, 2017, 01:39:18 AM
SJMV ?  That's kinda minimalist.   :grin:

It's my real life initials. I first bought Elite in 2015 and stuck that in the name slot, not realising anyone would ever see it :-)

And my Asp is called Trek 520 because I have piloted one thousands of kilometres in real life (google it).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 12, 2017, 02:12:21 AM
Congratulations. I usually forget to take any pictures of my exploits so nice to see you took some.

Interestingly enough the "You have been the first to..." screen always gives me a nice feeling. Even though it's just virtual planets in a game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 12, 2017, 02:17:20 AM
My verdict after 2 weeks of owning an Anaconda:

I usually fly my Python. Don't get why it's so popular. SC handling (you know the place you spend most of your time in) is really bad. Evading interdictions is a chore because the turning speed is so low and it handles like a bucket full of bricks even with A rated thrusters. Is practically useless in dogfights without turrets because you don't catch anything quicker than a snail in your crosshairs.

I regret spending 300 million on it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on June 12, 2017, 02:51:48 AM
Some people like slow turning graceful bricks. I know I do.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 12, 2017, 03:36:14 AM
The view of Jeff is also my view.

Do Not Like.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 13, 2017, 04:44:27 PM
E3 announcement: 2.4 update, called "The Return", is indeed Thargoids (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/357610-Elite-Dangerous-2-4-The-Return).

Cue fucked-up Federation ships in HIP 17044, and a teaser trailer with nice sound (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmVEYZnDZf8). Oh and David Braben talking about it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX49v8zYutI).

(http://i.imgur.com/SjRSkYN.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 15, 2017, 11:12:02 PM
Report of Braben showing a video of Thargoid tunnels. (https://www.polygon.com/e3/2017/6/15/15806938/elite-dangerous-update-the-return-thargoids-e3-2017)

Quote
As they moved closer to the surface they began maneuvering over what I initially thought might be a crashed Thargoid ship. But the closer the pilot got, the larger the structure appeared.

It was almost as if the surface of the planet itself had opened up like a gigantic mouth, leaving behind a huge crater lined with jagged, tooth-like structures.

I watched, mesmerized, as the ship landed and the pilot disembarked into a tiny, six-wheeled rover. Soon, they were completely underground, driving along inside of a tunnel or a cave. Egg-like sacks popped and splattered beneath the rover’s wheels. Eventually, an unusual, drone-sized vessel called a Scavenger appeared, leading the player through a series of doors toward a large, central room.

And that’s when the video stopped.




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: cironian on June 16, 2017, 12:05:31 AM
Dungeons in Elite? Did someone challenge them to add a feature that even Star Citizen didnt think of promising?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on June 16, 2017, 08:16:22 AM
All we need now is the Russian Mafia taking them over to sell the proceeds for real cash, and the Eve Online experience will be complete.

Semi seriously, if they add dungeons the Harry Poopers will be camping the entrances 24/7, so it will be one more thing to encourage people to engage their Romulan Cloaking devices of "fuck open play."


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 19, 2017, 07:34:59 PM
HOT

(http://i.imgur.com/3TARbU1.jpg)

(edit) System LP 469-60 in the bubble


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 20, 2017, 12:13:43 AM
Makes a dragon wanna retire man.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 20, 2017, 10:34:02 AM
I see that you posted it to Redit as well. Great picture.

Scariest moment of my ED career so far was exiting hyperspace passing through the corona of a star in a binary star system.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 20, 2017, 10:26:12 PM
For Ironwood: this name had me laughing in my space madness; "it isnae terraformable, but 5 minutes with the hairdryer..."

(http://i.imgur.com/efceOlz.png)

Sorry.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 21, 2017, 12:55:13 AM
Can't help myself. Took this about 1/3 of the way to Colonia.

(http://i.imgur.com/8vq5Xdn.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 21, 2017, 01:06:14 AM
For Ironwood: this name had me laughing in my space madness; "it isnae terraformable, but 5 minutes with the hairdryer..."

(http://i.imgur.com/efceOlz.png)

Sorry.

Don't apologise, I'm sharing that weegie-wise.

Also, you shouldn't apologise for those beautiful pics, keep 'em coming.  I wish I could figure out the camera controls myself, but I'd have to, you know, configure some first....



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 21, 2017, 01:45:54 AM
I wish I could figure out the camera controls myself, but I'd have to, you know, configure some first....

I haven't figured them out yet either. Seems to require a lot of key mapping.

Ctrl+Alt+Space switches it on/off (by default). I''ve mapped ONE keypress beyond that: hide the HUD (I mapped it to Ctrl+H). I go into that view, then fly my ship with normal flight controls to line up the shot (the default F10 to take screenshot).

That's why my ship is in all the shots. I can't zoom in/out or fly the camera around until I map those :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Hawkbit on June 21, 2017, 07:54:41 AM
The PS4 version comes out next week. Has anyone played or heard anything about it?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on June 21, 2017, 05:04:20 PM
The PS4 version comes out next week. Has anyone played or heard anything about it?

Preordered... on a couple discussion groups on PS4 for it. But obviously can't play it yet. Early download which is nice.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 21, 2017, 05:31:04 PM
The PS4 version comes out next week. Has anyone played or heard anything about it?

Things I've read about:

  • (EDIT: this point is not correct - see below) It's the same game. But the PC, Xbox and PS4 versions are all separate versions of the galaxy. There is no cross-platform play. If I had a PS4 I'd become an explorer and get my commander name on systems near Lave and Sol in this fresh galaxy.

  • I'd get the Commander Deluxe Edition, which includes Horizons (the expansion, treated as a season pass, with the aliens imminent). The standard version will be the same as Elite: Dangerous without Horizons.
  • It will have the same massive learning curve. I'm 550 hours in, and I'm still learning.
  • It has HOTAS support. I use mouse and keyboard and I can't imagine using a console controller, but I'm sure it works just fine on the Xbone and will be fine on PS4.
  • PSVR support should be impressive. Elite: Dangerous was designed from the ground up to support VR. It's one of the best VR experiences you can have. They have promised PS4 Pro extras, so I'd assume superior VR on that console.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on June 21, 2017, 06:43:52 PM

Things I've read about:

  • It's the same game. But the PC, Xbox and PS4 versions are all separate versions of the galaxy. There is no cross-platform play. If I had a PS4 I'd become an explorer and get my commander name on systems near Lave and Sol in this fresh galaxy.
  • I'd get the Commander Deluxe Edition, which includes Horizons (the expansion, treated as a season pass, with the aliens imminent). The standard version will be the same as Elite: Dangerous without Horizons.
  • It will have the same massive learning curve. I'm 550 hours in, and I'm still learning.
  • It has HOTAS support. I use mouse and keyboard and I can't imagine using a console controller, but I'm sure it works just fine on the Xbone and will be fine on PS4.
  • PSVR support should be impressive. Elite: Dangerous was designed from the ground up to support VR. It's one of the best VR experiences you can have. They have promised PS4 Pro extras, so I'd assume superior VR on that console.

Sadly, number 1 there is not true exactly. The galaxy is shared in the background and each platform influences the same galaxy, but you can only interact with the same platform playerbase. So something discovered on 1 is discovered on all...

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/313815-Cross-platform-play


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 24, 2017, 11:37:48 AM
Allegedly SDC and other PvP groups plan to sabotage the PS4 release by ganking new players in the starter zones and fucking up the background economy to put those systems in lockdown to make it harder for new players to make money.

Unless their "demands" are met by Frontier Developments.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on June 24, 2017, 12:34:32 PM
Allegedly SDC and other PvP groups plan to sabotage the PS4 release by ganking new players in the starter zones and fucking up the background economy to put those systems in lockdown to make it harder for new players to make money.

Unless their "demands" are met by Frontier Developments.

Precisely why I am going closed circuit for awhile. Zero reason to deal with muppets getting their HAHAs at the expense of other players.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on June 24, 2017, 12:44:43 PM
Allegedly SDC and other PvP groups plan to sabotage the PS4 release by ganking new players in the starter zones and fucking up the background economy to put those systems in lockdown to make it harder for new players to make money.

Unless their "demands" are met by Frontier Developments.

"What a mess that would be" said frontier developments. "If only we had learned something in the years we have been running this game that would have allowed us to engineer a way to prevent this kind of catastrophic playerbase-killing wankery?"


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 24, 2017, 02:16:41 PM
"The reason they're doing this is that they have a list of demands about how they want the game to change. These include reworking engineers, changing how the block function works, BGS effects from solo and PG, and various other concerns frequently brought up by the PvP community." (from the Reddit thread I won't bother linking to)

From what I can gather from the thread (which is not that much because it has since degenerated into name calling, an ontological debate about the term "sociopath" and infighting) those groups are basically pissed off about two things.

1. Frontier fixed an engineering exploit that let you get level 5 rolls with level 1 materials. Which was used by most of the PvP fanatics to get "god rolls" on internal modules. Frontier decided to remove the illegally obtained engineering mods and also all other legitimate rolls made by that player on the same ship. The argument seems to be that since engineers are broken and a massive grind they should have been entitled to cheat because others could get god rolls on the first try or something. They are also furious because they lost basically most of their advantage in PvP.

2. Basically a complaint that they find fewer and fewer people they can gank engage in PvP with as people can go to solo or private group or block players and basically never encounter them while having the same amount of fun and effect on the simulated galaxy. Basically force people to play in open to get all of the 'benefits' of the game, including participation in community goals.

I don't actually know if they can really do what they plan or if Frontier has any sort of countermeasures in place (going by past experience with FDev and the game I doubt it).

I just found it pretty silly that they actually think they can achieve anything by threatening FDevs revenue stream and the launch of their game on a new platform.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 24, 2017, 11:40:44 PM
 :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Miguel on June 25, 2017, 11:15:31 AM
When I was running muds, I had no problem spawning high level mobs, switching in to them, and griefing assholes publicly.  If I was Frontier, I would spawn a fleet of Frontier-controlled Thargoid ships and lay waste to the whole lot of them.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 25, 2017, 12:55:05 PM
The irony in that one would be watching the cowardly fuckers disconn one at a time.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on June 25, 2017, 02:46:15 PM
The irony in that one would be watching the cowardly fuckers disconn one at a time All at once and then cry on the forums with all their 5 accounts.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 25, 2017, 03:21:00 PM
The only thing griefers have in their favour is new players' lack of understanding that you can switch between Solo, Open and Private Group at any time, without penalty, and continue playing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Rendakor on June 26, 2017, 08:04:14 AM
The easy fix would be to start new players in Solo, leave Private Group available, and make them play for some amount of time before switching to Open.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on June 26, 2017, 08:46:24 AM
The easy fix would be to start new players in Solo, leave Private Group available, and make them play for some amount of time before switching to Open.

But that would stagnate emergent content!!!

!!

Now, I'm not exactly sure what their definition of that it... but to me it comes across as letting players dictate the story and conditions and environment of your game, either by choice or by not actually having any countermeasures built in to curb asshat behavior. Instead of figuring that out, just give it a cool name... you know, like bigly.  :oh_i_see:

As toxic as GTA online is, at least they have the whole passive playstyle option and it works for the majority of the time.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 26, 2017, 04:26:00 PM
The easy fix would be to start new players in Solo, leave Private Group available, and make them play for some amount of time before switching to Open.

Good idea.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 26, 2017, 06:15:16 PM
Thargoid Base found. Unknown Artefact and Unknown Probe function as keys to open the doors.

System HIP 19026, Planet B 1 C, lat: -17 long: -152 (now gank central, so play in Solo/Private).

Pics here. (http://imgur.com/a/5cxMe)

Some videos in this Reddit thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/6jnx4a/thargoid_base_found/), including this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doXo23w4FBs) (skip first part).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 27, 2017, 06:11:58 AM
What's inside the Thargoid base.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 27, 2017, 07:25:44 AM
Goddamn, I'm missing all this.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on June 27, 2017, 07:35:54 AM
It seems that Elite is turning into another EVE for me as it seems more fun to read about what's happening than to try and actually participate in it (this was especially true with trying to find new ruins etc)  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on June 27, 2017, 08:45:21 AM
PS4 just got off the ground and is struggling with the OPEN part. I logged in this morning before work just to knock out the account linking and holo me stuff. So PS4 players are going to be playing catch up for the next year and will barely be in the story.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 27, 2017, 03:38:28 PM
PS4 just got off the ground and is struggling with the OPEN part. I logged in this morning before work just to knock out the account linking and holo me stuff. So PS4 players are going to be playing catch up for the next year and will barely be in the story.

There is plenty to do at the beginning, and there's always more stuff to learn, BUT there are quick opportunities to be involved in the story. Jump range is the only barrier. Fortunately, some of the cheapest ships have potentially massive jump ranges. Many experienced players actually take a dirt-cheap ship to these events.

If I were starting again (which I've just done, to set up a second account on PC), I think something like the following might work for quick catch-up and story involvement:

(REVISED 30 June)

  • Choose to start as a "new commander" in space, not on a Horizons planet. On the newbie ship, I'd sell both lasers, because they're dead weight unless you're spoiling for a fight. Extra mass is the enemy of jump range. What you want first is cargo delivery missions from the mission board (names like "Deliver 4 units of Food" or "Boom time delivery of 3 units of Chemical Processors", etc). Look through the lists and hopefully you'll find cargo delivery missions that tend to pay about 100k each. If you can't find any of them, do data delivery missions which pay 10k-20k and look for ~100k cargo delivery missions at your destinations.

  • Bind the Basic Discovery Scanner (part of your default ship) to a fire group, so you can use it like firing a weapon. Whenever you enter a system, fire the discovery scanner (this is called "honking" due to the sound it makes). Scanning any system or celestial body is worth money even if you're not the first to scan it. You can sell the data to Universal Cartographics (available everywhere) when you are more than 20 ly from the system you scanned.

  • Your main aim is to be upgrading your Frame Shift Drive, which determines jump range. This will open up the galaxy to you. When you can afford it, maybe also add an extra cargo bay to increase your Sidewinder's capacity from 4T to 6T, which means you can take 5T and 6T delivery missions (not that it makes a huge difference). With cargo delivery missions, you should soon reach a 2A Frame Shift Drive (available at many large stations).

  • A good ship to buy for quick story involvement is a Hauler (http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Hauler). It's cheap, significantly increases your trading capacity to 22T, but the main thing is it has one of the best jump ranges in the game. It does all this with the same 2A Frame Shift Drive as the Sidewinder used, so make sure you keep that (store it) before you buy the Hauler. Other modules rated D are the lightest weight (even A-rated is heavier) and lower mass means more jump range, so upgrade any E-rated modules to D. If you can reach them, the systems influenced/controlled by Li-Yong Rui are best for buying ships and equipment, as everyone gets a 15% discount. Many people use Ray Station in Diaguandri. Many veteran pilots still keep a Hauler around to use as a taxi for things like story events and reaching their stored ships.

  • Buy the best possible Fuel Scoop (http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Fuel_Scoop) and learn how to use it to refuel (star types K G B F O A M can be scooped). When you can afford it, also add a Detailed Surface Scanner, which allows you to target suns, planets and moons and scan them for more money (you have to fly within scanning range). When you feel ready, start using the "Road to Riches" link quoted below to visit and scan high-value systems. At first it will be a "honk" with the Basic Discovery Scanner, and flying up to some planets/moons and doing the Detailed Surface Scanner thing. When you can, upgrade your Discovery Scanner, which extends its range and earns you more money. Ultimately the best scanner gives you infinite range and captures all bodies in a system. When you've scanned as many systems from the Road to Riches list as you want, return to a station and sell the data to Universal Cartographics. Here are your earnings. (https://i.redd.it/5khvftdue6ry.jpg)

"Road to Riches" (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/6f8s82/road_to_riches/) - someone has mapped a route from the bubble, scanning 301 earth-like and terraformable water worlds in 241 systems within 200ly of the starting point, to generate exploration data worth 280 million credits (plus lots of faction/engineer standing). Aimed at helping new players make money, but could be useful for anyone.

  • Other methods: Get out of the starting system into a high-tech system (use the filters on the galaxy map to find one, and sell newbie cargo rack/lasers to buy a fuel scoop to travel there) and consider it your first "home". Inhabit the surrounding systems, finding cargo/data delivery missions that pay well... or any other mission type that will earn you money fast. Systems in Famine or Civil War or Boom states have desperate/wealthy clients who pay well. Or find a Resource Extraction Site (http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Resource_Extraction_Site) (preferably High Intensity, but NOT a Hazardous one) and follow the cops around to see what they shoot at, and get a shot in at each of the pirates the cops shoot. You then share the bounty (survive and land to claim bounty via Contacts at a station). Alternatively just find the best nearby trade loop (https://eddb.io/trade/loops) and repeat it over and over, with the most cargo racks you can equip. But the other methods are faster.




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 27, 2017, 09:24:31 PM
As sounds have previously been relevant, players generated a spectrogram image from sounds emitted by the device in the Thargoid base.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 28, 2017, 12:08:44 AM
That's seriously cool.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 28, 2017, 10:32:56 AM
Fuck that Palin unlock. I didn't need G5 Dirty Drives anyway.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 29, 2017, 04:09:48 AM
Wait, isn't that the 5,000 ly one ?  Surely you've done that already from your previous postings ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 29, 2017, 08:28:27 AM
25 unknown fragments.

You only get those from rare unknown signal sources around the Pleiades sector. One per source. Gave up after three hours and not encountered a single one.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 29, 2017, 08:38:24 AM
Wow.  That does sound like it sucks absolute balls.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 29, 2017, 02:41:18 PM
25 unknown fragments.

You only get those from rare unknown signal sources around the Pleiades sector. One per source. Gave up after three hours and not encountered a single one.

Found a post that says they can be obtained in bulk from a specific alien crash site (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/5at5i8/psa_new_alien_crash_site_is_great_source_of/).

Edit: video shows how (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IabpaGfXQAs). I have no sound at the moment, so apologies if he's got some kind of whiny voice/bad music :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 29, 2017, 04:38:26 PM
There's a lot happening. (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/6k7eqg/couple_of_news_regarding_the_thargoid_ship_base/)

136 Thargoid bases (https://map.canonn.technology/us/) have now been discovered, in various systems. They are all a bit different from each other. This all coincides with the release of the new Drew Wagar novel (the author of the earlier Salome story), which apparently is very good and gives the background and sets up the future events.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on June 30, 2017, 04:57:56 AM
25 unknown fragments.

You only get those from rare unknown signal sources around the Pleiades sector. One per source. Gave up after three hours and not encountered a single one.

Found a post that says they can be obtained in bulk from a specific alien crash site (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/5at5i8/psa_new_alien_crash_site_is_great_source_of/).

Edit: video shows how (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IabpaGfXQAs). I have no sound at the moment, so apologies if he's got some kind of whiny voice/bad music :)

Can confirm you can get them from the crashed ship sites as thats where I got mine


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 01, 2017, 03:03:16 AM
The "Road to Riches" data is now a tool: http://edtools.ddns.net/expl.php

This allows you to create a route from where you are in the Bubble to every known Earth-like, Water World and Terraformable High Metal Content planet within a few hundred light years. Scanning these is worth 400k to 700k each, so after a short time you come back with millions worth. There's also a "visited" box to click on each to mark them off. Full explanation here (http://edtools.ddns.net/expl.php?a=about).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 01, 2017, 03:51:40 AM
The "Road to Riches" data is now a tool: http://edtools.ddns.net/expl.php

This allows you to create a route from where you are in the Bubble to every known Earth-like, Water World and Terraformable High Metal Content planet within a few hundred light years. Scanning these is worth 400k to 700k each, so after a short time you come back with millions worth. There's also a "visited" box to click on each to mark them off. Full explanation here (http://edtools.ddns.net/expl.php?a=about).

Started using this on Thursday. Only problem with the app is it didn't save any of my stuff, so I printed out a few sheets and went old school pen and paper. 3 pages in and I have 120m... god damn it.  :drill:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on July 01, 2017, 04:11:51 AM
Crashed alien ships work for fragments, but boy are those sites broken.

Visited all three sites. Point of Interest markers don't work. On one site the POI marker is 5 Mm from the planet, on another it's 3 Mm inside the planet, on the third you can't land, you can touch down but ship will not go to landed mode and the POI is always 3 km out regardless of the direction you fly in). (Also you get the "safe disengage ready" notice instead of planetary approach)

Had to look up the coordinates via the wiki and manually fly to them (the recommended solution according to Reddit and the official forums). The site I visited was half clipping through the ground, all the unknown fragments were below the surface due to clipping meaning that I couldn't shoot them (collision was still calculated) and my SRV "sunk" and clipped through the ground. I had serious concerns that it might fall through the surface at some point.

Took me about an hour to manually find a site that wasn't broken and another 10 minutes to get all the fragments I needed.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 01, 2017, 09:25:36 AM
The "Road to Riches" data is now a tool: http://edtools.ddns.net/expl.php

This allows you to create a route from where you are in the Bubble to every known Earth-like, Water World and Terraformable High Metal Content planet within a few hundred light years. Scanning these is worth 400k to 700k each, so after a short time you come back with millions worth. There's also a "visited" box to click on each to mark them off. Full explanation here (http://edtools.ddns.net/expl.php?a=about).

That would be perfect if you could integrate it with an 'already visited' list.  Yes, I get that you can click them, but....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 02, 2017, 04:30:52 AM
Lave is on lockdown.  Where the fuck do I get my Lavian brandy now ?

 :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 03, 2017, 06:39:07 PM
The "Road to Riches" data is now a tool: http://edtools.ddns.net/expl.php

This allows you to create a route from where you are in the Bubble to every known Earth-like, Water World and Terraformable High Metal Content planet within a few hundred light years. Scanning these is worth 400k to 700k each, so after a short time you come back with millions worth. There's also a "visited" box to click on each to mark them off. Full explanation here (http://edtools.ddns.net/expl.php?a=about).

That would be perfect if you could integrate it with an 'already visited' list.  Yes, I get that you can click them, but....

This might work better - a version of the Road to Riches data with a "restart from here" feature (you'd need to note where you're up to, and resume from there): https://www.alpha-orbital.com/pathfinder

It also has "copy to clipboard" for system names and you can check them off as you visit them.

Meanwhile the community has found 135 more Thargoid bases (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/6l0gde/i_believe_weve_run_out_of_thargoid_sites_to_find/).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 04, 2017, 11:45:12 AM
Yeah, I have Elite.Txt to do the same job.   :awesome_for_real:

Thargoids man.  We're gonna be fucked soon.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 04, 2017, 01:45:56 PM
Grinded out Elite exploration off that list on PS4. Haven't done that in a long long time. Now onto mining.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 04, 2017, 03:03:35 PM
That's... quite quick.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 04, 2017, 04:26:07 PM
Tell me about it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 04, 2017, 06:12:44 PM
LOL. I've just reached Colonia for the first time, after scanning many full systems along the way. I've just cashed in 50 million of exploration data to reach allied with lots of factions in the Colonia region, with a few more pages of data still to go, and my exploration rank is just Ranger.

Almost every system I visited along the way was a new discovery (I went slightly left and upward from the direct route to Colonia). I'm flying a DBX geared to 53 ly per jump with a half-sized fuel tank, limiting my route to K G B F O A M stars and scooping on every jump. It stays so cool that you can actually finish scooping and immediately activate the FSD without overheating. I might strip it down to just the discovery scanner and hot-foot it home, jump-honking, to do the Road to Riches before they nerf it somehow! I already did a bit of it on a second account to quickly equip it to participate in Bubble/Thargoid activities while my main is out in the black.

Now onto mining.

Mining is peaceful, but I didn't find it fun. It made me want to do combat. I am puzzled that you would pick mining as the next thing, as you don't need money - is it because you want stuff for engineering? The most important engineer is Felicity Farseer to get your FSD range high, and she doesn't need you to mine.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on July 04, 2017, 06:24:20 PM
After the rebalancing of the exploration payouts you need 300 million (give or take) in exploration data to reach Elite Explorer from Zero.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 04, 2017, 06:40:24 PM
I don't have a problem with that. It was grindy like that in the 1980s (back then I only ever reached Deadly, the rank before Elite). It's just funny that I have spent three weeks travelling through deep space, but 01101010 is Elite explorer in a few days and has barely left the bubble. Gotta take my own advice and run the riches route.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 04, 2017, 06:46:48 PM
I don't have a problem with that. It was grindy like that in the 1980s (back then I only ever reached Deadly, the rank before Elite). It's just funny that I have spent three weeks travelling through deep space, but 01101010 is Elite explorer in a few days and has barely left the bubble. Gotta take my own advice and run the riches route.

Started Tuesday evening. Ran my sidewinder around some HIGH RES to collect enough starter money to get a hauler and mod it with all D rated stuff save for the A FSD. Added the ADS and DSS along with a B rated scoop and then just grinded out enough for the anaconda. Once I had that, I decided to pick up where I stopped after an upgrade to the FSD and then REALLY grinded it out.

(http://i.imgur.com/E9CTon8.jpg)

And yeah I did a mining run before deciding I should just finish out the ELITE ranking... hence the dealer thing. And I also picked up a 8A power plant as a souvenir from Jameson. They always get you in the gift shop.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 05, 2017, 06:03:57 AM
I'm still weirded out.  That's Rapid Mode.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 05, 2017, 07:49:36 AM
So, theoretically, how would you outfit the Fer De Lance so it's not an unholy godawful piece of shit ?

Assume A rating on all the normal items.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 05, 2017, 09:57:13 AM
So, theoretically, how would you outfit the Fer De Lance so it's not an unholy godawful piece of shit ?

Assume A rating on all the normal items.


Hated that ship when I was fucking about on the PC. Vulture was way better for me in combat and the python years ahead in terms of jumping and cargo. Go for broke  and kit it out with all railguns.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on July 05, 2017, 10:21:36 AM
Hated that ship when I was fucking about on the PC. Vulture was way better for me in combat and the python years ahead in terms of jumping and cargo. Go for broke  and kit it out with all railguns.

Is there even a size 4 railgun?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 05, 2017, 10:36:49 AM
Hated that ship when I was fucking about on the PC. Vulture was way better for me in combat and the python years ahead in terms of jumping and cargo. Go for broke  and kit it out with all railguns.

Is there even a size 4 railgun?


If not, put a 3 in it. Look, do combat right and get a gun ship and kit it with nothing but multicannons... like the video says to do. DAKAKAKAKAKA


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on July 05, 2017, 01:13:28 PM
Hated that ship when I was fucking about on the PC. Vulture was way better for me in combat and the python years ahead in terms of jumping and cargo. Go for broke  and kit it out with all railguns.

Is there even a size 4 railgun?


If not, put a 3 in it. Look, do combat right and get a gun ship and kit it with nothing but multicannons... like the video says to do. DAKAKAKAKAKA

Or do the combat totally wrong like I did with my imperial cutter; just fill it with energy weapon turrets and a npc fighter (and one extended range weapon to pull in the enemies) and then park it at the edge of npc encounter and just sit there until you are bored or accidentally draw more than one cutter at a time in which case it's better to flee.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on July 07, 2017, 07:01:48 AM
Thinking about getting this on PS4.  You chaps seem to like it.  I like exploring space, hauling space goods for space dollars, and pretty space scenery.

Does it let me play with just my set of asshole pals?  Curious about the co-op abilities for aged introverts.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 07, 2017, 07:57:34 AM
Plays the same as PC. You can choose solo, private group (which you set) or play with asshats. Graphics are worse than PC obviously but better than XBONE (video comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDyi7Fwrxno). You will also have to deal with pop-in a bit on PS4 as all things render. For me, I don't much care, but some people are really bothered.

Open play is laggy so I hear and you will get disconnects here and there even in solo, though in solo they are few and far between, slightly more in private group, and much more in open asshat land.

Controls are customizable same as on PC if you need to and I hear this game takes advantage of the motion control in the DS4. I have the HOTAS so I can't comment if it works or is a rumor.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on July 07, 2017, 09:04:26 AM
Plays the same as PC.

This doesn't help me. :oh_i_see:

Graphics are worse than PC obviously

Part of the deal on consoles.  I'm fine with that.

I have the HOTAS

Ah, sorry to hear.  Speedy recovery!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on July 07, 2017, 09:07:54 AM
More seriously, I have a T.Flight Stick X keeping part of my floor dust-free.  Wonder if it will work on PS4....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 07, 2017, 09:26:34 AM
More seriously, I have a T.Flight Stick X keeping part of my floor dust-free.  Wonder if it will work on PS4....

Not without a lot of help.

See: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/356301-PS4-HOTAS-Compatibility-Index
Quote
Confirmed Working

1. Thrustmaster T.Flight HOTAS 4

Confirmed NOT Working

1. There is no support for the TFRP (Thrustmaster T.flight Rudder Pedals)
2. Saitek X56
3. Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X
4. Thrustmaster 16000m FCS

However... you can probably do this, though I am not sure why anyone would... https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/360343-Elite-Dangerous-PS4-using-hotas-x52


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on July 07, 2017, 09:33:31 AM
Ah, yeah.  That goes against everything the Console Casual Race stands for.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on July 07, 2017, 09:45:08 AM
While screwing around in the PS4, I found out that you can invert the colors.  This inverts everything.  Not sure why people would want that, but it's there if you get bored.

Anyway, sounds like I might like it if Private Group does what it sounds like.  I do not mind SEEING other players but I don't want to have to deal with them or hear them talk.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on July 07, 2017, 10:07:52 AM
Looks like my buddy has already bought this game and forgot about it, so I'm in.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 07, 2017, 10:36:48 AM
I have a few friends on my list from the forums... seems like an older crowd in the game. Some of them will host a private group at times which you will need an invite to get into..but it keeps it to basically invite only. I am a part of the PvE Mobius crowd which seems fine. Only ran into one other player while in that private group, but then I was out grinding to elite so I wasn't surprised I haven't seen anyone.

I haven't played in asshat mode. I'd like not to have to fork over the 15m rebuy because someone thinks they are funny.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 07, 2017, 10:38:29 AM
I'm in the PVE Mobius as well;  indeed, you'll find me there to the exclusion of all else.  Feel free to throw Sugo on your friends list.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 07, 2017, 10:38:56 AM
I'm in the PVE Mobius as well;  indeed, you'll find me there to the exclusion of all else.  Feel free to throw Sugo on your friends list.


On PS4?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 07, 2017, 01:26:34 PM
No, fuck that.   :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on July 07, 2017, 02:20:20 PM
I did one tutorial and it is indeed possible to dodge an asteroid and reach a station using the Dualshock 4.

Independently confirmed that the T.Stick no workee.  This is fine.  I'll see about the PSVR ability eventually.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on July 07, 2017, 03:36:50 PM
I did one tutorial and it is indeed possible to dodge an asteroid and reach a station using the Dualshock 4.

Independently confirmed that the T.Stick no workee.  This is fine.  I'll see about the PSVR ability eventually.

The thrust master TFlight Hotas for PS4 also works on PC. So maybe get that one


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 07, 2017, 10:19:06 PM
Thinking about getting this on PS4.  You chaps seem to like it.  I like exploring space, hauling space goods for space dollars, and pretty space scenery.

Does it let me play with just my set of asshole pals?  Curious about the co-op abilities for aged introverts.

The "background simulation" (political events, status of each faction, etc, all influenced by player actions) is connected across all platforms, so even if they're on the PC version, you can talk about the same changing events. But to see each other, fly around together, drive on planets together, etc, you need to be on the same platform and in the same instance.

Mini-review: Give it time. It's hard to begin. You'll pass the learning curve eventually, and figure out how to make money. Do lots of reading and watch some YouTube videos. I still don't know everything despite 600 hours played, but I have a few ships, including one that does 56 light years per jump. I am exploring and happy. I've done combat and trading and passenger missions. I've stopped playing other games because this one is so vast and it just suits me. It's the year 3303 and the human race has expanded across about 19,000 star systems. But there are hundreds of billions of star systems in the game. It's been live for years now, but relative to the amount that there is to explore, hardly anything has been discovered.

Edit: this new video explains what I'm talking about (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uL3TQswwCM).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 08, 2017, 06:41:33 AM
Controlling the SRV is a major dick.  I clearly need to redo the keybindings.

That said, Quince is STILL giving out 15mil plus for scan missions.  I've just spent and hour toodling about to get my cash back up after the Ferdie debacle.

Incidentally, my Ferdie is now awesome and I really like shooting things in him.  Python is still marginally better, but not as nimble or good looking.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 10, 2017, 01:54:28 AM
There's nothing like completing a fuckload of Road to Riches scans only to find out you hadn't installed the Detailed Surface Scanner the entire time.  Suddenly, my lack of Elite Status already becomes clear.

 :oh_i_see: :heartbreak:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on July 10, 2017, 02:08:07 AM
No big deal Ironwood, you're only getting 50% of what you could be getting if you had one  :why_so_serious:

I made the same mistake once, that's why all of my ships now carry a discovery scanner/detailed surface scanner combo, even the Fer De Lance.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 10, 2017, 06:38:38 AM
There's nothing like completing a fuckload of Road to Riches scans only to find out you hadn't installed the Detailed Surface Scanner the entire time.  Suddenly, my lack of Elite Status already becomes clear.

 :oh_i_see: :heartbreak:

What happens when you don't have one? Does it do the same "Scanning..." thing and give you the "Celestial body info gained" (or whatever it is) message, and just not tell you that it wasn't detailed? Never tried it without detailed scanner.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 10, 2017, 06:44:40 AM
Yeah, it scans fine and gives you a message that's subtly different to having one.  So much so that you won't notice.  And lose millions.  Because you're a cunt.

Goddammit.

What's worse is I tick off worlds that I've done by, er, erasing them from my notepad file.  So it just seems like way too much effort to go around and rescan them.  Ah well.  Chalking it up to experience.

Ah, just noticed Jeff's reply.  FUCK YOU JEFF.   :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 10, 2017, 07:54:04 AM
Yeah, it scans fine and gives you a message that's subtly different to having one.  So much so that you won't notice.  And lose millions.  Because you're a cunt.

Goddammit.

What's worse is I tick off worlds that I've done by, er, erasing them from my notepad file.  So it just seems like way too much effort to go around and rescan them.  Ah well.  Chalking it up to experience.

Ah, just noticed Jeff's reply.  FUCK YOU JEFF.   :why_so_serious:

Yeah that situation blows ass. Luckily I followed the guide verbatim so I didn't leave without my goodies. Wish I could say the same for my SRV hangar. I been working on overcharge grade 5 all of my multicannons so I was out in an RES for a very long time - so I usually leave the buggy and hangar in storage and put something else in the slot. Found out I needed to grab some firmware by scanning a few installations. Jump the 151ly, fly down to the 1.3g world. Fuss around with trying to land... face plant, take 30% damage on the crash.... Finally land and go to deploy. Back in storage. Fly off to the nearest station, no hangars for sale, transfer the hangar and buggies - 34 minutes. I logged out to cool off. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on July 10, 2017, 11:19:38 PM
Ah, just noticed Jeff's reply.  FUCK YOU JEFF.   :why_so_serious:

Been there, done that lost 60 million credits in the process. Since then A-rated discovery scanner and detailed surface scanner are the second and third upgrade I buy after a-rated FSD and I equip them on all ships even pure combat vessels. There's a lot of money to be made just by honking unknown systems and scanning the rare ELW or terraformable while commuting in the bubble.

Most of my minor faction reputation gains and most of my initial explorer rank up to and including Ranger have come from exploring while travelling inside the bubble.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on July 10, 2017, 11:19:58 PM
208 thargoid sites have been found so far


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 11, 2017, 01:09:37 AM
What's happening with them though ?  They doing anything yet ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 11, 2017, 11:26:13 PM
Photos from my trip to Colonia and back, in a Diamondback Explorer called "Giant Leap". Gameplay scattered over 3.5 weeks of my life.

Made 70 million from detailed scans on my way out. Then 12 million doing honk-scoop-jump on my way home. The fast return drove me crazy... much preferred the variety of slow exploration.

Stripped down my ship for 57 ly jump range on return trip: fuel scoop (weightless), AFMS (weightless), docking computer (weightless), smallest possible fuel tank (8T), advanced discovery scanner. Limited the Galaxy Map to K G B F O A M stars, scooped on every jump. DBX stays so cool you can hit jump while still in scooping range. That said, I'm going back to an Asp Explorer for the view.

(http://i.imgur.com/6nIdKq0.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/ivEsmRR.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/pGk5Hx0.jpg)


WTF seriously... this is NOT an Earth-like?

(http://i.imgur.com/BZCva3R.jpg)


Arrival.

(http://i.imgur.com/RAshfrJ.png)


"In democracy's name!" *drinks*

(http://i.imgur.com/vFtEv0j.jpg)


Dream big, Carla of Colonia.

(http://i.imgur.com/qAzvhNw.jpg)


Jump, honk, sc... BRAKE

(http://i.imgur.com/tOMDGaP.jpg)


Jump, honk, sc... BRAKE AGAIN

(http://i.imgur.com/0dDFrY9.jpg)


BALLS.

(http://i.imgur.com/W48oFfJ.png)


A busy system.
(http://i.imgur.com/IkPn9by.png)


Ringed water world, planet 4 in the above system, with its neighbouring gas giant (and Barnard's Loop photobomb).

(http://i.imgur.com/D4CR5Fm.jpg)


Can't sleep. Too many suns.
(http://i.imgur.com/UoGRjnf.png)


Need a new paint job after all that.

(http://i.imgur.com/atroxdZ.jpg)


I told you it was made of cheese.

(http://i.imgur.com/RGYeOLe.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on July 12, 2017, 12:09:24 AM
 Nothing wakes you quite like seeing your ship exit hyperspace between a pair of binaries or through the corona of a star.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 12, 2017, 09:46:03 PM
208 thargoid sites have been found so far

They just discovered two more (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/6mupar/2_new_unknown_sites_have_been_found_were_up_to/) by correcting errors. Some speculation the total might be 256.

What's happening with them though ?  They doing anything yet ?

The sites vary. They are all inhabited by alien drones called Scavengers. Some sites are inaccessible due to apparent cave-ins. Most however contain the same central chamber with a massive device which shows an incredible star map lightshow when fed an Unknown Artefact, Unknown Device, and Unknown Link.  If Guardian tech is inserted instead, the device gets visibly angry and spews fire and explosions and damage, and the Scavengers attack. This suggests to me that Guardian-based weapons will be what we'll have to develop to fight the Thargoids.

Other than that, they don't seem to do anything other than point to each other and be incredibly atmospheric. I haven't physically been to one yet, just watched videos.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 15, 2017, 02:06:11 AM
That's me finally hit Elite in Exploration.  Amazing what having the right fucking scanner can do to the rate of change.

Now on to getting that trading rank.   :heartbreak:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 15, 2017, 03:33:05 AM
That's me finally hit Elite in Exploration.  Amazing what having the right fucking scanner can do to the rate of change.

Now on to getting that trading rank.   :heartbreak:

About time old man...  :drill:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on July 15, 2017, 08:24:24 AM
Now on to getting that trading rank.   :heartbreak:

Do you like pain and suffering?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 15, 2017, 08:43:09 AM
That's the names of my testicles.

Also, wee heel.  But that's another story.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 24, 2017, 02:12:59 AM
Okay, so the Quince Money Bank continues.  I don't know if it's because I'm Elite now (probably) but all these scans are coming in at a million-4 million.  And it'll give you about nine of them at a time.  And it's literally 8 minutes work.  So money is all fine.

I'm currently grinding out the Engineers and have got and maxed almost all of them.  Just doing those fucking Modular Terminals right now.

I'm happy with all my ships, apart from the Anaconda, that is getting slowly to where I want to get it to.  Just waiting to get the big fuck off Powerplant that costs more than the goddamn ship.

I keep trying my hand at combat, but to be honest I find it hugely boring, so it's going quite slowly.

Thargoids have not yet eaten me.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 24, 2017, 07:16:24 AM
I just landed at one of the Thargoid sites, in HIP 14909. If you arrive at Obsidian Orbital in Maia, you get sent a new mission to retrieve some alien items, so I was trying to do that. Was playing in solo and didn't have a UA/UP to open the door, so I left after killing a few scavengers and scooping up the things they dropped. Overall it was cool to have been there... Very MMO dungeon-like POI. Amazing to see that existing in a game galaxy of this scale.

I went to Maia because I'm doing Road to Riches and turning in my data after every 50 systems. I'm using it to make myself allied to all the factions in all the systems I want to use for various purposes in the future. Finding Road to Riches a grind, after 250 of the 550 systems. When it gets me to Elite I'll quit doing it and go adventuring.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on July 25, 2017, 05:29:33 AM
Just doing those fucking Modular Terminals right now.

Are you not getting those in Quince?

I went down to Wu Guinagi to pull enough missions to get mine


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 25, 2017, 06:44:35 AM
Yes, I am.  This does not distract from the arsehole that is collecting them.

 :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on July 25, 2017, 02:56:46 PM
I tried the tutorial again today, and really struggled with the advanced combat on keyboard + mouse.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: rattran on July 25, 2017, 06:26:57 PM
I coudn't pass the second combat tutorial, so started the game. I did fine in Combat. Skip the tutorials except learning to land. Then buy a landing computer and never do it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on July 25, 2017, 06:47:03 PM
The first combat tutorial is fine. I never got past the second one either.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on July 25, 2017, 06:55:01 PM
I kept getting waxed by the second group of tutorial enemies. I found it hard to manage going faster and slower along with manuevering to get some of them in my sights.

I did land ok finally. That remains more annoying than I expected. It reminds me of Microsoft Airplane Simulator way back in the day.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 25, 2017, 10:17:35 PM
I kept getting waxed by the second group of tutorial enemies. I found it hard to manage going faster and slower along with manuevering to get some of them in my sights.

I did land ok finally. That remains more annoying than I expected. It reminds me of Microsoft Airplane Simulator way back in the day.

Definitely skip any difficult tutorials and just play the game. You'll get the hang of it eventually. Remember the starting Sidewinder has infinite free rebuys so you might as well just learn through trial and error, crash into as many things as you want, die in any ways you like, offend as many factions as you want, and learn that way.

When I began to understand the size of the galaxy map and how big 400 billion star systems actually is, my landing problems became insignificant. Nowadays I take a docking computer if there's room for one. They're weightless, so they don't affect the jump range of your ship.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 26, 2017, 01:08:26 AM
I coudn't pass the second combat tutorial, so started the game. I did fine in Combat. Skip the tutorials except learning to land. Then buy a landing computer and never do it.

This used to be good advice until SRV missions bring you in millions.

Use your free Sidey and learn to dock, land and touchdown.  It's worth it and actually really, really easy.  What I find makes docking hard is other players.  Still smarting from that asshole that boosted his conda out the middle of the slot and crushed my DBX like a tin can.  Fucker.

On a related note, server lag last night was horrendous and multiple complaints on the boards.  I hope to fuck they fix that quick.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on July 28, 2017, 02:03:38 AM
I hate community goals for that reason.

You come in with a Conda, do everything by the book - adhere to the speed limit, pass through the slot on the green side, keep in the mid until you're at your pad - even announce it in local and you still get some motherfucker who's just boosting his huge ass Cutter or Beluga smack dab through the middle of the mail slot. Last time this nearly cost me a rebuy on my Conda as said motherfucker managed to get me wedged in the slot and nearly shot for loitering.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on July 29, 2017, 11:12:40 AM
Caught up on 3+ months of this thread and I am all fired up to play this again. I bought a screaming fast new PC since I last played, so hopefully I can see some benefits from it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 29, 2017, 11:15:14 AM
I've been on for literally the last 48 hours, so feel free to say hi.

I have blown so much fucking money though.  My Conda is now all fitted out and A rated and, fuck me, I'm now so poor.  Barely got 18m to rub together.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on July 29, 2017, 03:11:54 PM
That is about 3x what I have IIRC. And I don't have a Conda. Or a Python.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 29, 2017, 06:50:41 PM
I actually mothballed my conda for now. I have it set as a barebones cargo hauler/explorer. Got it up to 56LY jump range empty so that's nice. I grabbed a python for some mission grinding and powerplay stuff and once I get this prismatic shield thing out of the way, I'll probably strip the python and store it away and go to town on the conda. I'm up to 95m saved with an A rated Python with some engineering. I'm actually enjoying things all things considered.

I did have my no insurance claim streak broken by some NPC asshat that got involved when I was interdicted by a pirate in a conda who pulled me out for the bounty on me. Was doing ok against the conda but then had another pirate drop in in a gunship wanting my lucky charms. 1 ring left against the conda, conda down to 33% hull, and my last ring drops with the gunship and then missiles... lots of missiles. Never had two different NPCs drop out on me, but live and die and learn.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on July 30, 2017, 12:38:51 PM
I am quite rusty. I spent most of my playtime yesterday tweaking the UI back to where I had it. My joystick still feels really muddy and unresponsive...wonder if it is time to finally buy a new one? I have had this thing like 15 years I think LOL.

Had to flee from a fight in my Vulture because a Viper was handing me my ass. Like I said...RUSTY.  Made a couple of million doing courier missions with 16T in cargo space  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 31, 2017, 01:15:18 AM
The culture shock of moving from your DBX to any other ship.

*Plots Course*  53 Jumps.  What the MotherLoving Fuck.

This is why I spend so much money and time transferring my ships through the UI.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on July 31, 2017, 04:05:28 AM
I usually fly there with my DBX and then transfer the ship I really need over. Even with the 30 minute wait period it's usually quicker (albeit more expensive). Nobody has time to travel 600 ly with a FDL that has 12 ly jump range.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 31, 2017, 04:28:54 AM
I guess a DBX could make sense as a taxi, but I've gone back to an Asp Explorer.

I did 45,000 LY in a DBX (Colonia and back, scanning everything on the way out) and though it's a pretty ship, the cockpit view SUCKS (can you tell it left a scar?). The fat bars down the middle of the screen are too ugly. And having done about 800 jumps with a 4A fuel scoop, I'm now a massive fan of the much faster 6A scoop on the Asp. Enough that I'm prepared to put up with a few less LY jump range, even on all my future exploration trips.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on July 31, 2017, 04:35:55 AM
It's the heat for me ;  The DBX handles heat just a metric fuckload better.  Cleopatra was ALWAYS cooking in every jump and heat was a worry - with Dervish, I just fucking jump the minute my drive is ready. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on July 31, 2017, 03:54:01 PM
I have played this for a bit.  Where is the real game?

I did buy a new ship. Cobra MkIII and that is much better than the loaner.  The upgraded Friendship Drive is super helpful.  I'm still running missions, though.  I want to buy turds from one place and sell them in another but it's shitty work.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 31, 2017, 05:35:13 PM
It's a simulation of the 400 billion star systems of the Milky Way galaxy in 3303 where faster than light travel is real and humans have expanded to tens of thousands of star systems. The real game is what you do with that. There are many different paths. Don't do what you find boring unless it's part of a grind you have decided upon.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on July 31, 2017, 05:57:53 PM
I launched and bumped into the space station. I picked a mission and I'm supposed to go somewhere, but the J button keeps telling me I don't have enough fuel. There is something about this game that makes me feel completely incompetent. I had an easier time landing (crashing) planes in Microsoft Flight Simulator.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 31, 2017, 07:55:19 PM
The learning curve should not be underestimated. There should be a google search window in the game or something. If you have a full fuel tank and it's telling you there isn't enough fuel for the first jump, I think you may need to re-plot the route on the galaxy map. You probably reconfigured something about your ship after plotting the route, changing the mass of your ship and now your jump range is slightly different from when the route was plotted.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on August 01, 2017, 10:38:49 AM
I think he is trying to say that you need to take on your cargo and fit your ship first, and THEN calculate the route to your destination.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on August 01, 2017, 01:29:15 PM
Speaking of route plotting- I got back into my ASP and decided to go into the dark. After 10 or 15 jumps, I heat-damaged myself and realized I didn't have any ammo for my AFMU. I pulled up one of the online databases to see how far back it would be to a station with repair and outfitting.

2 jumps.

I had forgotten to use fastest route when plotting my original 'exploration', so I spent a bunch of time jumping 7 LY at a time. :facepalm:


I logged out night somewhere past Betelguese, but still haven't found any uncharted systems yet. I have seen a couple of far out planets that don't show as having a first discoverer in the system map, but when I get out to them I don't get any special message, so who knows.

Still no ammo for my AFMU, and my SRV is almost out of fuel. I am....not good at this game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on August 01, 2017, 01:44:58 PM
There are some outposts out there that you can get ammo for your Repair system and refuel. Cant remember them off hand though. *Helpful comment award 2017*


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 01, 2017, 02:14:27 PM
I am truly bad at combat in this game, if it helps any.

What's worse is that I KNOW that I'm bad at it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 01, 2017, 02:34:32 PM
Still no ammo for my AFMU, and my SRV is almost out of fuel. I am....not good at this game.

You can refuel your SRV while driving it (http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/SRV_Refuel), using synthesis (crafting). One unit of sulphur, one unit of phosphorus. Common on all planets and moons. You can even make advanced fuels that last longer, but there's not much point as the standard one is fine and the stuff used in the advanced fuels is needed for engineering.

You can restock the AFMU the same way, but with different materials (2 nickel, 2 zinc, 2 chromium, 3 vanadium). See lower down on the above linked page. Again there are premium versions that repair your ship faster, but all you want is your ship repaired.

Synthesis allows you to keep going as an explorer in deep space, long after the things you bought at a station have run out. You just can't repair your hull or power plant yet, and to repair the AFMU itself needs a second AFMU. But if your power plant or another vital system runs out of health, you can can "reboot and repair (http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Reboot_and_Repair)" (aka "have you tried turning it off and on again?") which cannibalises other systems to get it working again.

Quote
haven't found any uncharted systems yet. I have seen a couple of far out planets that don't show as having a first discoverer in the system map, but when I get out to them I don't get any special message, so who knows

The special message comes when you sell the exploration data at a station (Universal Cartographics). A pop-up saying "Congratulations commander, you are the first to discover..." So make sure you get safely back to to civilisation!

To get your name on an unclaimed thing, you need to have scanned it up close (target it within acceptable range, with a detailed surface scanner equipped on your ship -- different item from the advanced discovery scanner that honks).

My first fully undiscovered system was about 1000 LY from Sol. Even on common routes like Sag A and Colonia, if you first take a few jumps off course and then head slightly off centre to your destination, every system is undiscovered and claimable.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 01, 2017, 03:40:08 PM
Yeah, my claimed system was in the coalsack, which is pretty much right next door.  It's all about finding that wee route off the path.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 01, 2017, 09:21:58 PM
I am truly bad at combat in this game, if it helps any.

What's worse is that I KNOW that I'm bad at it.

Before I went to Colonia, I spent many play sessions experimenting with loadouts, setting up equipment, and googling everything that I could think to ask about a big expedition. Days later, I decided "I'm ready". It was time to hit the road.

I launched from Ray Gateway in Diaguandri and plotted my first 1000 LY, made the first first jump and... crashed into the sun.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on August 01, 2017, 11:49:27 PM
Have found a few uncharted systems by now. Even got some Vanadium on a planet, so I can run my AFMU if needed. Have also read 70% of Ready Player One while I was exploring  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 02, 2017, 01:41:50 AM
Why ?  That book is shit.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on August 02, 2017, 07:17:48 AM
People have been telling me to read it for years, and I wanted to get through it before the movie comes out. It is amusing enough, but will never be confused for literature.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 02, 2017, 08:36:45 AM
Anyone any good places to farm Arsenic ?  In game, I mean, I ain't trying to kill the wife or anything.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on August 02, 2017, 08:47:55 AM
Anyone any good places to farm Arsenic ?  In game, I mean, I ain't trying to kill the wife or anything.


No where with any huge concentrations. Find a planet with >1% and go SRV hunting.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 02, 2017, 02:27:27 PM
Anyone any good places to farm Arsenic ?  In game, I mean, I ain't trying to kill the wife or anything.

In Felicity Farseer"s own system, Deciat 6d and 6f are both 2.5% arsenic. Some people claim Deciat 7b is best, but it only says 1.5%. I've also read that you should have the arsenic-wanting blueprint pinned before you go looking for it, but I think that may be superstition.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 02, 2017, 03:48:15 PM
Grand.  Now, theoretically, if I wanted to kill the wife.... ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on August 02, 2017, 05:12:19 PM
Grand.  Now, theoretically, if I wanted to kill the wife.... ?

Go with belladonna, not arsenic. It's easy to get in the wild and you can't really trace it...


...and I've said too much.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on August 04, 2017, 12:57:50 PM
Worked my way back to the core. Ironwood's visit to Yoru reminded me I need to grind out faction with some engineer-related parties, so I turned in my ~3.5M credits worth of data in there. Had a few pages of firsts, so that was kinda neat. Bumped me from neutral to friendly with Party of Yoru, so now I have Nemo unlocked. Found a decent shipyard a jump away and transferred all my goodies to it last night. Now to grind up tech levels and get some good weapons.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 05, 2017, 01:47:09 AM
Yeah, but now the cunt wants me to give him rare beasties and I'm all outta patience with that shit.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on August 05, 2017, 11:26:46 AM
It is like a 3 jump run to Xihe, and they are dirt cheap. The longest wait I had was the hour for my 32T cargo hold to transfer!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 06, 2017, 02:05:33 AM
I just made Viscount with the Empire.  Doing it was actually easy, the hardest part was wrapping my ship in green foil.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 06, 2017, 02:06:03 AM
It is like a 3 jump run to Xihe, and they are dirt cheap. The longest wait I had was the hour for my 32T cargo hold to transfer!

Nah, fuck him.  I have another engineer with the same specialties at level 5.  He can fucking wait, the cunt.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 06, 2017, 05:34:03 AM
Also, I didn't know about this :  https://youtu.be/p7KzYG1RUEI (https://youtu.be/p7KzYG1RUEI)

Constantly respawing rare supply ?  Yes please.

Already raped it multiple times today....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on August 06, 2017, 06:35:53 AM
Also, I didn't know about this :  https://youtu.be/p7KzYG1RUEI (https://youtu.be/p7KzYG1RUEI)

Constantly respawing rare supply ?  Yes please.

Already raped it multiple times today....

Dav's Hope? Yeah... did that many times. It's the WalMart of materials. Just don't come from the direction of that mountain... it's a bitch to fly over (and run into...)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on August 06, 2017, 01:24:16 PM
Nice! I will have to boogie out there and stock up. I don't suppose there is any way to upgrade the amount of stuff you can hold?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 06, 2017, 01:44:23 PM
I wish.  The 500 data limit sucks hard.  However, you can constantly browse Inara to find out what shit you're carrying is 'the most' useless to you.   :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on August 06, 2017, 04:03:33 PM
I wish.  The 500 data limit sucks hard.  However, you can constantly browse Inara to find out what shit you're carrying is 'the most' useless to you.   :oh_i_see:

That really is shit. Data has 500 limit but materials has 1000. I mean come on...

I tend to keep 15 of all the NEED mats and data, 5-10 for everything else.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 07, 2017, 04:57:39 AM
I just finished reading Reclamation, the first of the official Elite Dangerous novels by Drew Wagar, which drive the in-game plot developments. I was a bit unsure at first as I spotted some bad punctuation (I do that for a living), but it turned out to be a great read and I now understand the lore better. I really enjoyed it. So I've just bought the new sequel, Premonition, which is supposed to be even better (the one for which Harry Potter killed Salome... but by all accounts that is handled well).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 08, 2017, 01:13:20 AM
Hello, I'm bored at work. I've grown a fleet with my exploration and Road to Riches cash (and hit Elite Explorer).

Python "Luskentyre" - well-equipped for both combat and exploration, for day-to-day bubble-region tasks (currently still finishing Road to Riches).
Anaconda (tradeconda) - min/maxed for trading to Elite.
Asp Explorer "Scarpa" - main long-haul exploration ship.
Diamondback Explorer "Giant Leap" - retired exploration ship with peeled paint. Currently stripped.
Cobra Mk III "Fun" - A-rated combat Cobra because it's just so nice to fly.
Adder "Shuttle" - set up for max jump range and exploration including SRV, to watch and participate in crowded Open events (e.g. Thargoid bases) without much rebuy risk.
Hauler "Colonia Taxi Service" - fully equipped and left this at Colonia Hub while I was there, in case Frontier ever implements a fast-travel method of getting to Colonia (e.g. NPC passenger shuttle) so I could get around there if ever needed.

My best 5A engineered FSD gets transferred between the Python, Asp, and DBX as needed.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 09, 2017, 04:24:38 PM
friendship drive (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI3Na-sXt1Y)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on August 09, 2017, 05:43:26 PM
Why would you do that.... don't you know that is what set River off?? You monster.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 10, 2017, 02:04:27 AM
 :heart:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on August 10, 2017, 09:32:10 AM
friendship drive (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI3Na-sXt1Y)

It is like a unicorn jizzed in my ocular cavities.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on August 15, 2017, 01:33:28 PM
That video is what I expected to happen.  I am dissapoint.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 27, 2017, 06:12:21 PM
Elite: Dangerous and Horizons (and the combined Commander Deluxe Edition) are back on special on Steam: 33% off (http://store.steampowered.com/app/359320/Elite_Dangerous/).

Also I found it interesting to look at Canonn Research's page of unsolved things (https://canonn.science/tag/unsolved/). I haven't been able to play much in the last 2 weeks due to work, gardening, home renovation, and life, but I got back into it last night.

Current aims: finish last 120 planets of Road to Riches, gather engineering materials and engineer my fleet, go out on a long exploration trip again, start flying my tradeconda, and decide whether my alt account stays in the bubble as a Thargoid fighter or becomes my exploration account. Hmm. Lots to do.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 28, 2017, 12:53:22 AM
Very cool link.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 28, 2017, 03:09:39 PM
You know how there are 400 billion star systems in the Milky Way galaxy? And you get how incomprehensible that number is when you do a bit of exploration in Elite: Dangerous.

Well, according to NASA there are at least 2000 billion galaxies in the observable universe (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/hubble-reveals-observable-universe-contains-10-times-more-galaxies-than-previously-thought). Have I lost you? I've lost me.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on August 29, 2017, 08:59:05 AM
Not Elite but didn't want to open a new thread just for the announcement video:
X4 Announcement Trailer XCON 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuIeKMYaIAk)  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on August 29, 2017, 11:38:32 AM
Not Elite but didn't want to open a new thread just for the announcement video:
X4 Announcement Trailer XCON 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuIeKMYaIAk)  :why_so_serious:

Seamlessly yo'!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on August 30, 2017, 07:09:29 AM
Not Elite but didn't want to open a new thread just for the announcement video:
X4 Announcement Trailer XCON 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuIeKMYaIAk)  :why_so_serious:

I hope they learned their lesson from Rebirth release.........


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on August 30, 2017, 10:30:44 AM
In other news, I am finally onto unlocking Palin... Flying aimlessly 5000ly away. I have very little  interest in exploring so this is just a flat out grind of jump to star, scoop, jump to next star, scoop - all while honking and zooming on. Thankfully I decided to buy a DBX and kit it out for jump range as best I could so jumping the 1k ly hops is only ~20 jumps. Still... this is horribly boring.

Occasionally I'll pull up a system map and check out the planets which have all been found already so I am not spending too much time on that. I might get a bit more into scanning planets in the systems when I get +4k out and I need to take a break from beating my head against my chair.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 30, 2017, 11:16:50 AM
I need to do that shit.  Not looking forward to it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on August 30, 2017, 03:27:25 PM
All I can tell you is get a podcast to listen to. I listened to recordings of people playing RPGs. Doing it without that is a recipie for insanity.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 30, 2017, 04:27:39 PM
In other news, I am finally onto unlocking Palin... Flying aimlessly 5000ly away. I have very little  interest in exploring so this is just a flat out grind of jump to star, scoop, jump to next star, scoop - all while honking and zooming on. Thankfully I decided to buy a DBX and kit it out for jump range as best I could so jumping the 1k ly hops is only ~20 jumps. Still... this is horribly boring.

Occasionally I'll pull up a system map and check out the planets which have all been found already so I am not spending too much time on that. I might get a bit more into scanning planets in the systems when I get +4k out and I need to take a break from beating my head against my chair.

The worst way to travel is repetitive jump-honk-scoop-jump. Drives you fucking crazy. I did 21,000 LY back from Colonia that way and it broke me.

You have to mix it up with some planetary scanning. And if your route is even slightly off-centre from the direct route (a bit of up/down/left/right during course plotting), once you get beyond about 1000 LY from the bubble, you will find they're all totally undiscovered, unexplored systems that you can claim by selling the Detailed Surface Scans. Eventually you WILL find something fucking cool that nobody else has been to (in a procedurally generated Milky Way, but still).

And podcasts, yes.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on August 30, 2017, 04:36:07 PM
Don't scoop at every star either. The Scoop pause can be a nice way to break the trip into 5 jump chunks.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 30, 2017, 04:43:39 PM
Unless you're like me and stripped your DBX down to the smallest possible fuel tank for increased jump range, which means you HAVE to scoop at every star :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on August 30, 2017, 05:11:14 PM
I'm not that insane. I'm 3k out and found a few stars claimed and the 40-50 odd objects around the star completely devoid of any info. I'm scanning through every few jumps if they have unclaimed stuff. Still, exploration is not my bag of tea.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on September 11, 2017, 09:34:40 PM
I maxed everything on this and it is...

(http://i.imgur.com/zw794Qf.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on September 14, 2017, 06:24:21 PM
New promo video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38bHNSB4cDM) and launch date announced for Thargoids (September 26).

Edit: ON SALE at Humble 33% off (https://www.humblebundle.com/store/elite-dangerous-commander-deluxe-edition?hmb_source=search_bar) if you want to get inb4 Thargoids or set up an alt.

(https://i.imgur.com/wv8889z.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on September 15, 2017, 01:19:04 AM
This lack of youtube embed sucks.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on September 15, 2017, 05:36:44 AM
I had my thargoid removed after a night of binge drinking ruined it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on September 21, 2017, 06:46:34 PM
Great screenshot. Was posted 15 hours ago to Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/71i7vv/my_patience_paid_off_after_2_days_these_planets/) and is already the 9th most popular Elite item of all time.

(https://i.imgur.com/nCU870I.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on September 27, 2017, 03:03:37 PM
[removed -- pic was actually promotional artwork, not the exciting screenshot I had thought]


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on October 17, 2017, 06:53:03 AM
Is that the top of Mercedes Benz Stadium killing people?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on October 27, 2017, 12:16:22 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/bha9On5.gif)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on October 28, 2017, 10:27:36 AM
Space Legs ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on October 28, 2017, 12:33:19 PM
being able to walk around your ship first person a la jpeg citizen


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on October 28, 2017, 01:43:49 PM
Fuck that.  That's not even in the top 100 of things the game needs.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on October 29, 2017, 12:23:37 PM
Walking in stations worked so well though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on October 29, 2017, 08:48:35 PM
Just rolled up a 53.5% FSD mod with an extra 2% fuel use bonus. All set for galactic exploration again.

However I have too much fun dicking around in my maxed-out, engineered Cobra MkIII with a flames paint job and ship ID "FUN". I have taken on a few Thargoids in it (and run away when they start to hurt me) and visited various POIs like capital ships and megaships. It's a good low-risk ship for doing everything in Open too.

I wish the Thargoids were really invading and the galaxy was in crisis. After tangling with them briefly I went back to farming engineering materials. Ready for the next phase now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on October 30, 2017, 05:51:05 AM
I've not even seen one yet ;  where they hanging out ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on October 30, 2017, 07:35:04 AM
Easiest way I found them was system Asterope near Maia. Find an unknown signal source that resolves as Non-human Threat Level 5.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on October 31, 2017, 10:41:15 PM
Useful links.

Canonn Research Codex
- index of all the noteworthy things you can visit in the galaxy and what to do there: https://canonn.science/codex/

isokix.space
- similar but different index of noteworthy things to do/visit in the galaxy: http://isokix.space/


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on November 01, 2017, 03:29:57 PM
As I'm currently in the Witch Head Nebula, here's a list of 141 nebulae, visible or reachable from the bubble (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=178731). Bonus list of 32 other galaxies visible in the sky.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on November 03, 2017, 12:00:59 AM
Hello.

(https://i.imgur.com/ISCjOEW.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/p77fnZe.jpg)

System V1990 Orionis.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on November 03, 2017, 08:55:08 AM
Soooo pretty.  Thanks for posting.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on November 05, 2017, 01:38:29 PM
Colonia info database. (https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/) Even if you're never going there, this describes pretty well WHAT it is.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on November 06, 2017, 04:27:44 AM
Has there been an optimised route for getting there posted somewhere ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on November 06, 2017, 02:16:58 PM
You can now plot routes up to 20,000 ly so the galaxy map itself should provide an optimised route. However, if you want lots of discoveries to your name along the way, you want the opposite of an optimised route :)

You can also plot a "neutron highway" route (https://www.spansh.co.uk/plotter) using neutron stars to boost your jump range. I've never tried that, so I'd learn from a YouTube video first. On a ship with a 50 ly jump range, a full trip using neutron stars would be as few as 140 jumps, but it's slower and riskier to set up each jump. Using regular everyday hyperspace you're up for 400 jumps (can also reduce this with FSD boosts via crafting).

But if I was going there again (argh), I would want to see the unique Caravanserai station (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/7az0hn/caravanserai_gandharvi_system/) and whatever else is good on the route.

Space ports along the way: (recently added)
Rohini (Eudaemon Anchorage)
Gandharvi (Caravanserai)
Kashyapa (Vihara Gate)

Surface bases: (why? I'd rather use space ports)
Blu Thua AI-A c14-10 (Hillary Depot)
Lagoon Sector NI-S b4-10 (Amundsen Terminal)
Eagle Sector IR-W d1-117 (Eagle's Landing)
Skaudai CH-B d14-34 (Sacaqawea Space Port)
Gru Hypue KS-T d3-31 (Gagarin Gate)
Boewnst KS-S c20-959 (Polo Harbour)

I'm a fan of the space between, not the destination. Here is a reply I posted on Reddit to someone who asked "what is going on in Colonia?"

Quote
Not much, really. Functionally it is a smaller, lower-populated alternative to "the bubble", 21,000 ly away from Sol, with AI minor factions named for real player groups. That makes it both impractical to visit regularly, and impractical to inhabit full-time.

The lore is that a cyborg bartender called Jacques put a FSD on his station and jumped it there and got stuck, kicking off the settlement of that area of space. It's a good hub for explorers and alt accounts. Not all ship modules are available, and there are only occasionally Community Goals there.

But it's cool. And space out there has a LOT more stars.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on November 07, 2017, 02:01:14 AM
Interesting, I knew they'd increased the plotting, of course, I just didn't appreciate they improved it that much...



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on November 08, 2017, 05:08:14 AM
Posted a gallery of my recent nebula pics: click here for more (https://imgur.com/a/QZyNu)

(https://i.imgur.com/HvEclct.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/68HfakG.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mandella on December 16, 2017, 10:05:04 AM
So, apparently, in the latest patch the Thargoids are finally attacking. And apparently the missions to go and try to evacuate refugees from the disintegrating stations are some of the best experiences in any space game, ever, especially in VR.

(Also apparently you don't fight the Thargoids. The Thargoids are really badass, and humans are screwed.)

So I patched up and logged in last night. It's been a while, so I needed to reacquaint myself with the controls, my ship, etc. Sitting in the launch bay, I started going over everything. And going over everything. And going over.....

After an hour I had finally gone down the whole checklist, felt reasonably confidant that I remembered how to fly and navigate, said "gg" and logged off and went to bed.

Tonight, I might actually get out of the launch bay.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on December 16, 2017, 03:59:47 PM
So, apparently, in the latest patch the Thargoids are finally attacking.

It's more like they have attacked. Three stations are on fire and covered with Thargoid goo and are being evacuated, and the storyline is that the Thargoids attacked them.

Watch a video.  (https://youtu.be/oqg4b15Iu4w)

However these three stations were all recent builds by Aegis, the organisation formed to fight the Thargoids and develop weaponry to destroy them. This suggests the Thargoids made a targeted attack. There is still a theory that this faction of Thargoid is the good faction that does not want to harm humanity in general, and we will soon be seeing the bad faction fought in the previous games.

Quote
And apparently the missions to go and try to evacuate refugees from the disintegrating stations are some of the best experiences in any space game, ever, especially in VR.

They are pretty spectacularly realised. I do not doubt this would feel incredible in VR. But essentially it's just flying into a super-hot starport and taking passenger missions.

Quote
(Also apparently you don't fight the Thargoids. The Thargoids are really badass, and humans are screwed.)

The Thargoids are seemingly not at these starports. It's just the aftermath. But there are Thargoids around the area of space.

There are three types, in order of strength: Cyclops, Basilisk, Medusa. With the right weapons you can solo a Cyclops. Some people have soloed Basilisks. You can't solo a Medusa; these are the badass ones.

Quote
Tonight, I might actually get out of the launch bay.

Me too. All equipped to join in... Busy with real life end of year/Christmas stuff.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on December 17, 2017, 03:57:13 PM
I logged in and did a quick rescue mission from The Oracle (a station that was attacked).

It's HOT in there, like flying into a sun. I used a heatsink and also took some damage. Other than that, it's pretty easy. The destination for the refugees is a nearby megaship, so it's a pretty quick turnaround.

The creative assets are really great - the desperation in the voices, the artwork making up the burning station, and the sound effects.

If I get time to go back, I think I'd look at the trading opportunities instead! Commodities like basic medicines and evacuation shelters are selling for great prices at the burning stations... BUT you don't even have to go there. There's a commodity market on the megaship that is also buying at the same great prices.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 18, 2017, 01:40:55 AM
Fuck me, don't launch this shit so close to Christmas, I have NO TIME TO PLAY YOU CUNTS.

(Yes, I'll log tonight and play...)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 18, 2017, 01:59:02 PM
Yeah, this is good stuff.  Except the fire and the screaming and the horror.

Though, for you Americans, you can make a shitton selling medicines and water to on fire people.  So, it has capitalism !


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on December 19, 2017, 06:15:43 AM
Its Trickle On Economics!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 19, 2017, 10:04:45 AM
I am ready for interspecies warfare in the finest craft in all of space sims



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 19, 2017, 10:11:16 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/9QEtLkE.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/BlY9Jwd.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 19, 2017, 10:16:22 AM
Goddamn  /nubnub


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on December 19, 2017, 11:01:18 AM
Well yeah, if you are into pretty things and all...  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 19, 2017, 12:15:19 PM
I check in occasionally to strenuously review if there's anything else I can do to upgrade it in any significant sense. I'm effectively capped out, but if the weapons meta changes significantly I can restart the process of maximally engine.

The last major change to it was to compensate for the planned soft and hard limits on shield boosters, switching half of the +shield boosters for shield resistances, modding them until the total cutdown for thermal and ballistic was around 60 to 75 percent reduction. I can swap them out for the old total shield amounts if necessary because it doesn't seem like there was a substantive reduction last I looked at the patch notes.

Outside of that, there's really nothing else to do. Everything is essentially maximally engineered, with extra care given to dump insane amounts of rolls into the distributor regeneration with an additional top-offed modifier for pluses to weapons distributor regen, and the maximal jump range increase almost hypothetically possible.

Additional, I have two maxed out 8A power plants: one is a maxed roll Overcharged to accommodate all those weapons and those shield mods at once, and in case they cut down shield boosters to a specific amount like four maximum, I have a maxed roll low emissions power plant to minimize heat signature and maximize heat reduction/recovery.

The weapons themselves are overcharged with effect modifiers, including incendiary class 4, and a single corrosive autocannon. The two large weapons ports are grade 5 efficient +dam -capacitor load thermal conduit beam gimbals. I have two heavy efficient beam turrets in storage just in case multi crew gunners are ever a fucking thing but


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 19, 2017, 02:15:57 PM
All of which means the Thargoids will eat you.

 :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 20, 2017, 06:12:00 AM
you can't kill what you can't catch you alien commie fake news bastards


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on December 23, 2017, 02:13:05 PM
Elite Dangerous players are trying to rescue a player beyond the edge of the galaxy

https://www.pcgamesn.com//elite-dangerous/elite-dangerous-fuel-rats-sol-rescue


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MisterNoisy on January 01, 2018, 09:41:11 AM
Looking for a good HOTAS for this.  Most of them seem obscenely expensive for what will be an occasional-use part, but this ThrustMaster setup (https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01KCHPRXA/) looks tempting.  Anyone have any experience with it?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on January 01, 2018, 12:19:14 PM
If you are looking for a cheaper HOTAS option, this is the one I use: https://www.amazon.com/Thrustmaster-T-Flight-Hotas-Flight-Stick-pc/dp/B001CXYMFS
It does split in half, so you can have the throttle positioned somewhere and your joystick centered if you prefer.
For E:D I probably need 2 more buttons on the throttle, but since I'm trying to get VoiceAttack working it should cover those nicely.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Gets on February 09, 2018, 02:48:04 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/iNSHuT9.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on February 09, 2018, 02:54:48 PM
He's going to be mad they spelled his name wrong.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on February 14, 2018, 04:31:23 PM
Its a gorgeous ship!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbWSliGtB0


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on February 14, 2018, 07:14:23 PM
I painted my Asp and went out exploring again.

(https://i.imgur.com/8PeJkn5.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/5m3tF1N.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/qDZkucS.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/gTXwMaf.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/XxcNf2i.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/mwcs757.jpg)

And finally, the most cooked planet.

(https://i.imgur.com/wsmEAOf.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on February 15, 2018, 01:43:05 PM
Elite: Dangerous is 75% off at the moment, if you've ever wanted to try the game, or want an alt account to play in the Bubble while your main is in deep space (or be your co-pilot for an extra pip).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on February 15, 2018, 07:18:33 PM
sold! and thanks for the heads up. I look forward to buying that other space game for this price too a few months after it releases. In 2025   :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MisterNoisy on February 19, 2018, 07:45:28 PM
Just got my HOTAS off Amazon, so will be diving in.  Going to play normally for a bit, then swap to VR once I have the controls committed to memory.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on February 20, 2018, 03:50:57 PM
"Beyond - Chapter One" (3.0 or the next phase of Elite Dangerous after Horizons) launches February 27. Watch trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_iDS9yBURI).

Promises: improvements to core gameplay, new crime and punishment system, improved trading data/map, wing missions, new ships (Chieftain player ship and new Thargoid scouts, but Krait is still to come), more interactive megaships and installations, materials broker, technology broker, overhaul of engineering, in-game Galnet audio, new astronomical anomalies, improvements to planetary visuals and more detailed surface environments.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on February 21, 2018, 09:48:53 AM
I like that you can pick your quest reward from three different options now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on February 26, 2018, 02:46:36 PM
Two great videos:

- Hilarious review of Elite Dangerous in VR (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa0b2Kd2xhU).

- Exploring "The World of Death" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNZYHp5-y1U) (which has a fast orbit through the jet of a white dwarf)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 03, 2018, 03:26:48 PM
Can't jump. Soul Nebula might eat me.

(https://i.imgur.com/vVXrXUF.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 03, 2018, 09:15:15 AM
Now have the Cutter.

So you can insert rant on 'I hate wasting large berths on small items' rant here.

A Docking Computer should be a Utility Mount, dammit. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on April 03, 2018, 05:10:25 PM
welcome to the galactic hoi palloi


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 07, 2018, 11:52:34 AM
See you chaps that are Trader Elite ?  How the fuck did you do it and how the fuck did you not blow your fucking brains out with the boredom ?

Seriously.


Edit ;  turns out it's changed and making money on Passenger missions also helps your trading rank.  Hit Tycoon last night after running the Parutis/Medb billions.

So that's nice.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on April 19, 2018, 07:30:48 AM
Postcard from the Formidine Rift

(https://i.imgur.com/GJszOM4.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/GpOXScx.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/DdfcSia.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 19, 2018, 04:36:47 PM
Awesome.

I headed out there a couple of months ago, but took many diversions to sights along the way, and by the time I'd done the Heart and Soul nebulae, patch 3.0 was introduced. It sucked to be far away from all the new action and it was gonna be a long time before I returned to the bubble.

I was taking screenshots at Base Camp station in the Soul Nebula, and somehow I aggroed the station :) It blew me up and instead of respawning me there, I was was offered LHS 3447 insured, or LHS 3447 Sidewinder. Apparently this was a bug in 3.0, but I thought it was because Base Camp had no shipyard.

I'd already sold my exploration data out there, so I took my insured LHS 3447 respawn taxi to the bubble, bought a T9 with its new extra 256-ton cargo slot, and started trading (only to realise what Ironwood posted above, that I should be doing passenger missions). Maybe one day I'll go back towards the Rift!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: disKret on April 19, 2018, 11:22:57 PM
I'm new in ED (no DLC). Is it worth buying Ground DLC right of the bat or it doesn't add any meaningful experience?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 20, 2018, 12:32:45 AM
I'm new in ED (no DLC). Is it worth buying Ground DLC right of the bat or it doesn't add any meaningful experience?

Do you mean Horizons (http://store.steampowered.com/app/441340/Elite_Dangerous_Horizons_Season_Pass/)? (40% off at the moment!)

If you find you enjoy the game, you should buy Horizons. It's a really big part of the game.

The most important thing it adds is Engineers. They are NPCs who can upgrade the modules in your ship. So for example with the base game, you could build an exploration ship that jumps 35 light years, but Engineers could bring it up to 54 light years per jump. The other big aspect of Horizons is being able to participate in the story-driven content, such as interacting with alien ruins on planets.

But if you have just started, there is no immediate need to buy Horizons. The learning curve to playing the basic game is going to consume a lot of time before you even need to think about landing anywhere other than a space station.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 20, 2018, 01:14:45 AM
I wouldn't advise anyone NOT to buy Horizons.  The best way to think of it is this :  the base game will give you Elite.  You know, the 1980's game.  That's great, of course, but can you remember playing it ?  Fairly limited, right ?

Get Horizons.  Or don't bother with the game.


Also, the more I think on the Passenger missions thing, the more it bothers me.  It's a high credit activity that will get you both high levels of Exploration AND trading ?  Why do anything else ever ?

Does anyone have any experience of Combat missions ?  I've been doing the CC combat missions that has slowly crept my combat rank up and I'd quite like it to go up faster ;  do the missions help or should I just be grinding a haz-res ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on April 20, 2018, 05:20:23 AM
I'm new in ED (no DLC). Is it worth buying Ground DLC right of the bat or it doesn't add any meaningful experience?

Horizons is needed to access the Engineers which, while a bit of a grind, are very useful in improving aspects of your ship (notably jump range and thrust speed).

Other than surface stations there are both static and dynamic 'points of interest' but the interaction is, at most, typically scanning some datapoints for which someone will pay as well as surface 'mining' (shoot rock-collect rubble) which are mostly just for engineering

Awesome.

I headed out there a couple of months ago, but took many diversions to sights along the way, and by the time I'd done the Heart and Soul nebulae, patch 3.0 was introduced. It sucked to be far away from all the new action and it was gonna be a long time before I returned to the bubble.

I was taking screenshots at Base Camp station in the Soul Nebula, and somehow I aggroed the station :) It blew me up and instead of respawning me there, I was was offered LHS 3447 insured, or LHS 3447 Sidewinder. Apparently this was a bug in 3.0, but I thought it was because Base Camp had no shipyard.

I'd already sold my exploration data out there, so I took my insured LHS 3447 respawn taxi to the bubble, bought a T9 with its new extra 256-ton cargo slot, and started trading (only to realise what Ironwood posted above, that I should be doing passenger missions). Maybe one day I'll go back towards the Rift!

I made it to the Zurara megaship a couple of days ago..... and then promptly boosted into it several times while taking screenshots (this was done on xbox which uses the boost button in a combo to access the camera suite) so I'm currently headed back to Heart Nebula (did Soul on the way out) for repairs - not sure if I'll go back to Zurara and head further or return to the bubble afterwards (unlocked Palin on the way out).

(https://i.imgur.com/MhFgwhE.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/wIzIg4J.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/jgad9ZA.png)

On the way out I did visit the surface bases

(https://i.imgur.com/CfeNh3w.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/YGxei0g.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/cylnBY4.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Mw8lucM.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 21, 2018, 12:04:30 PM
Professor Palin can suck my dick.  He needs to give me this shit for free now 'cause of the fucking boredom he just put me through.

Cock.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 5150 on April 21, 2018, 12:41:20 PM
Professor Palin can suck my dick.  He needs to give me this shit for free now 'cause of the fucking boredom he just put me through.

Cock.


Dirty Drives 5 is O So Worth it though!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: disKret on April 22, 2018, 11:21:28 AM
Yeaah. Fuck. Anonymous CMDR reporting  :ye_gods:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 22, 2018, 01:34:00 PM
?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: disKret on April 22, 2018, 03:16:47 PM
I can't stop carry boom reports - WoW has schooled me to max out everything. Now,  I find out how easy is to get credits in High RES. I'm fetching million by million. Just can't stop, just like 10years ago in WoW or EvE.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 22, 2018, 08:42:38 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/wIzIg4J.png)

Here's the loitering that got me killed there :)

(https://i.imgur.com/syu7Qu1.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 23, 2018, 03:45:32 AM
Been watching a fair bit of Exigeous lately (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0Rwxz4318EEQGHz_z58nVA (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0Rwxz4318EEQGHz_z58nVA)) and the video where he talks about the top 15 3rd party apps was very interesting.

Long story short, despite knowing about the obvious ones there, the actual toolsets he recommends got installed and I had a look at them.  Not going to bore you with all the details, but I will say that running EDDiscovery was fascinating.  It basically took all my logs for the last 2 years and showed me my entire and complete journey in Elite, including some nice maps about where I'd been and how I'd been getting on.

It was also really, really fucking useful to find out which stations I'd maxed some Rep with, as this was information I was dying to know, didn't have the meat memory TO know and was useful for various things.

So, wee heads up there.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: disKret on April 24, 2018, 12:01:53 AM
Do You recommend any guides tips for cartography/exploring? I have fitted DiamondBack Explorere with ~40 jump range.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 24, 2018, 02:26:19 AM
I can't think of a guide that has it all, but remember to take BOTH an Advanced Discovery Scanner and a Detailed Surface Scanner.

They are used separately. You use the ADS when you arrive in a system, to find out which objects are in the system. The DSS automatically begins scanning a targeted object when you have flown close enough to it. You get more money when you've used a DSS on an object.

Reducing mass in your ship means more jump range. That means D-rated components wherever possible (obviously not your FSD!), nothing you don't need (e.g. don't take weapons), freely taking things that have no mass (even a docking computer for your safe return landing, if you have a spare slot) and engineering for low mass (if you bought Horizons).

Take a copy of the exploration payout guide image here: https://www.reddit.com/r/eliteexplorers/comments/650i3f/cmdr_frus_23_exploration_payout_guide/

Basically, Universal Cartographics (you can sell exploration data to them at most stations) will pay highest for earth-like worlds (ELWs), water worlds (WWs), and terraformable worlds which can include water worlds or high metal content worlds (HMCs). Don't die before you sell to Universal Cartographics, or you'll lose all your exploration data. If possible, divide the sale between stations/factions that you want to become allied with.

Also, space is stupidly big. Don't be too ambitious on your first exploration trip. Pick something a couple of thousand LY away from the bubble and come back when you've done that. By then, you'll have a good idea of whether or not you like exploration.

Also, don't fly straight there and back, because you might not find any unvisited systems. Do a bunch of jumps up or down from the direct route before you start and aim below/above your ultimate destination when plotting a route, and you'll have more chance of finding systems nobody has visited before. Selling the data on those systems is how you get your name on them permanently.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 24, 2018, 02:45:32 AM
I'd bring 2 repair systems as well. One can repair the other.

When I went exploring I didn't even bring a shield :D


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on April 24, 2018, 02:47:20 AM
Exploration data also gives you reputation when you sell it so keep that in mind when you choose where to sell it (but also remember that getting blown up means you earn nothing).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 24, 2018, 03:21:56 AM
I'd bring 2 repair systems as well. One can repair the other.

When I went exploring I didn't even bring a shield :D

I'd argue against double AFMU on a relatively small initial exploration trip. One AFMU is fine. Especially on a Diamondback Explorer where you need room for other stuff.

AFMU weighs nothing, so take B class as it has more integrity (hit points) than A rated, and if you have Horizons you can synthesise a refill for your AFMU by gathering the required materials on planet surfaces.

AFMU can't repair your hull, so it doesn't make up for the lack of shields (I take the lowest possible grade of D rated shield that the ship can use, engineered for low power use... Useless in a fight, but prevents those minor landing bumps and scrapes). It's fine to explore without shields though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 24, 2018, 05:15:30 AM
I'd recommend against a "No Shield" build for a first time explorer. Planetary landings are hard and without a shield every landing poses the risk of hull damage. Take a D-rated shield and engineer it for lower mass if possible.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: disKret on April 24, 2018, 06:46:53 AM
Thank You for tips.
Did You ever died to heat? I've read that there is small chance that You will jump into a system between two suns.
Also why people recommend fitting SRV?

Already made around 20 mill using road to riches site but I really want to try unexplored regions - to put my name on something


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 24, 2018, 07:20:53 AM
An SRV on an explorer is a must because you WILL want to land at one point, even if it's only to get some more materials to synthesise stuff.  You can't imagine the chuckling from the Fuel Rats when you're stranded next to a planet that could have improved your jump range, but you don't have an SRV. 

Also, it really cuts down on the boredom and gets you used to both landing on planets and using an SRV which you will use a STUPID amount if you ever want to engineer EVER.

Putting your name on something is easy as all hell ;  even when I recently did that 5k trip for Palin, I found no less than 13 unexplored systems ;  hell there are even more 'shareable' ones, since most people don't scan everything.  Pick a direction and go - I can personally recommend the Coal Sack Nebula, both because I know there's unexplored there as well as the fact that you might run into systems named after me.   :grin:

As to dying from heat, yes, it happens.  Mostly when you run into a Neutron Star for the first time, have zero clue what the fuck it is and hit it's incredibly wide edge.  This is also why we recommend a Heat Sink on an explorer.  You just never know when you might run into one of those bloody stars or, worse, into 3 stars clustered together with no way out but through !

Fly Safe.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 24, 2018, 08:48:11 AM
Thank You for tips.
Did You ever died to heat? I've read that there is small chance that You will jump into a system between two suns.
Also why people recommend fitting SRV?

I recommend fitting heatsink launchers. That small chance increases with the number of systems you visit. I've had this happen a few times during my last two exploration runs. Usually because you end up too close to a massive star, exit from hyperspace between a binary star pair or get to close to a white dwarf or neutron star's jet. Or simply because you screw up fuel scooping.

It's also a matter of routine, an expedition means you'll probably do hundreds of jumps and you'll do the same basic steps every time you enter a new system. (orient yourself, "honk", refuel, check system map etc.). This will get repetitve and you'll likely lose concentration and eventually screw up. Happened to all of us as well.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on April 24, 2018, 05:25:28 PM
You can open the map and color stars by Star Class, then check the boxes only for KGB FOAM stars, and also (bottom checkbox) "Apply Filter To Route" et voila: you can now fuel at every jump and never run into neutron stars.  Of course, there's still a chance to jump into a pair of regular stars and get heated up.   So it's still recommended that you take along a heat sink launcher.

When I had my Diamondback Explorer (DBX), I put a cabin in the top slot and took a mission for a tourist for 10,000 LY, paying 20 million.  Used spansh's RoadToRiches (https://spansh.co.uk/riches) for the first 100 jumps, because you can just copy-paste the "next destination" from his website right into the map, and bumped that 20 million to 100 million, scanning just the Earth-like worlds indicated.  Put my name on a couple systems far from the bubble.  Took a couple days to do the round trip, and was scary at the end because my dear passenger didn't want to get scanned, and I almost crashed into the station trying to land before a scan could finish.

EDIT:  I sold the cartographics data in Ethgreze to gain Alliance reputation and unlock Bill Turner.  Put me right at 100% allied, unlocked Alioth system permit.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: disKret on April 25, 2018, 01:37:39 AM
Is there a tool dedicated to road2riches that will avoid already visited systems during route plotting?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 25, 2018, 01:47:10 AM
Yes.  It's called Notepad.txt.

 :awesome_for_real:

(In all seriousness, the thing I linked earlier will show you where you've been, but I'm not familiar with a tool that will take that and make a customised RtR for you.)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 25, 2018, 04:13:44 AM
It's also a matter of routine, an expedition means you'll probably do hundreds of jumps and you'll do the same basic steps every time you enter a new system. (orient yourself, "honk", refuel, check system map etc.). This will get repetitve and you'll likely lose concentration and eventually screw up. Happened to all of us as well.

Exacgtly how I damaged myself in my trip.

With regards to my double Repair and no shield policy, I was on a trip to Colonia, and I had no plans to landing, so it made sense to me. Colonia is a long trip, even with the planetary outposts along the way as rest stops. But yeah, first time trip, bring a shield.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 25, 2018, 04:54:27 AM
Is there a tool dedicated to road2riches that will avoid already visited systems during route plotting?

I used this: https://www.alpha-orbital.com/pathfinder

It's great and if you're using the same PC, it remembers where you were up to (via a cookie I think). It has some glitches in the data where it groups two systems together as one, but you can always work it out and it continues being useful.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 25, 2018, 05:02:44 AM
or, worse, into 3 stars clustered together with no way out but through !
exit from hyperspace between a binary star pair

I don't think this can happen anymore. A few patches ago, they made it so that if the spawn point is a binary/trinary star, you spawn further away than normal (i.e. it's easy mode now). I now explore with only one heatsink launcher and I keep it switched off unless I need it, because otherwise I tend to accidentally fire it off. You can also restock heatsink launcher ammo via synthesis, so unless you're firing off 3 or more heatsink charges in an emergency, one heatsink may be okay now.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 25, 2018, 07:40:54 AM
It happened to me last week.  I suppose, yeah, I could have turned or moved, but my next waypoint was THROUGH DAMMIT !!!

 :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 22, 2018, 10:51:44 PM
"BONUS WEEKEND" this weekend: May 24 to May 30

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/428502-Bonus-Weekend-Trade-amp-Engineering-(24-05-to-30-05)

All profits from trading activities will be increased. The amount of profit will vary depending on what you are shipping and where you’re shipping it to. (Rare commodities are excluded from this bonus.)

The materials requested for engineering recipes will be at one rank below the existing ones. (G5 mods will require only the materials used for G4 mods, G4 will use G3 materials, etc.)



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 23, 2018, 01:42:52 AM
That may break my current Shadow of War dependency.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 25, 2018, 02:06:36 AM
You mean Uruk-hai Fighting Manager 2017?  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 25, 2018, 02:13:20 AM
Every fucking game needs The Nemesis System.

EVERY SINGLE GAME.

It's just a shame they didn't elevate some of the rest of it, like, you know, the base game and the story.

But The Nemesis System is the best invention since the AI from the original Half Life.

I'm currently in a battle of wills with Az-Bolg The Noble and he's a total, total cunt.  It's glorious.  I would tell you all about it, but it'll get very long.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 25, 2018, 02:39:42 AM
Every fucking game needs The Nemesis System.

EVERY SINGLE GAME.

I agree. It's also one of the bigger oddities in gaming why no one else is doing a similar thing. But we're getting off topic here.
Well maybe not: ED could massively profit from a well implemented Nemesis system to spice up the mission system and the gameplay/Story Background.

Imagine an NPC that is so hellbent on revenge that he'll follow you to Beagle Point or through the formadine rift just to get back at you or a competing Trader that wants to topple your trading empire etc.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on May 25, 2018, 04:23:31 AM
Yes.  That's kinda the thinking.  There are so many existing games where that kind of interaction would spice things up and Elite is one of them.

Hell, the Fer-De-Lance that hates you and KEEPS COMING BACK for you is pretty much what Elite is all about.


The problem with Elite is while I love it hugely, there's little to no interactions that draw you in as yet.  The closest you could come is playing in Open and meeting a total fucking tard.   :why_so_serious:  Hell, I've met Orcs in Shadow that have more personality than other players.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: disKret on May 25, 2018, 06:15:14 AM
On sale:
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/elite-dangerous-commander-deluxe-edition


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 25, 2018, 07:13:08 AM
The materials requested for engineering recipes will be at one rank below the existing ones. (G5 mods will require only the materials used for G4 mods, G4 will use G3 materials, etc.)

I pasted that from a forum, but it turns out to be incorrect. What Frontier means by "one rank below the existing ones" is the item that the materials trader would consider to be one rank below the material required. And that's not necessarily the G4 material for the G5 upgrade. It could be something else entirely. Confusing.

e.g. G5 FSD mod currently requires 1 rhenium, 1 chemical distillery, 1 eccentric hyperspace trajectory


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 09, 2018, 03:12:30 AM
I'm due to go to the shops with my wife. She's still getting ready.

I'm running a quick 784t of Power Generators to Lave in my Type 9 for the current Community Goal.

Interdicted right next to Lave Station... and oh shit, it's a player. I've mistakenly logged into Open. He disables my ship. He wants to chat, but I ignore him. Just destroy me or something. I'm busy.

"Drop some cargo," he says. I drop him 1t of Power Generators.

"Drop more," he says. I drop another 10. He moves off to scoop them up.

I reboot/repair and low wake out. But he interdicts and disables me again.

"Power Generators are worthless. Drop all your cargo."

Wife is ready to go. She has an appointment in 20 minutes.

I drop all the cargo for this guy. He moves off to scoop them up. I reboot/repair again and attempt to low wake out, but he mass locks me.

"Did I say you could leave?"

Screw this. I've gotta go. I log out. There's nothing stopping me. Am I one of those hated combat loggers, interrupting his space-asshole roleplay?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on June 09, 2018, 03:32:02 AM
How dare you make his erection smaller.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on June 13, 2018, 04:51:52 PM
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/cockpit.jpg)

Okay, damned if I can figure this out...

I've been trying to obtain the humble rank of recruit with the Federation just so I can go to Sol.  I'm 100% allied, and I apparently have enough juice to rank up, but I can't find any appropriate missions that will give it to me.  I've tried hitting up all of the "official" federation corps at Lembava, Pikum, and Sothis, but the only missions that will give me rank I can't take because I'm not trade ranked high enough.  Aren't there any passenger missions that will give me rank since I've primarily been exploring?  Is there anything I can do?

ETA:  I know I need Petty Officer to get to Sol.  I just want to finally get on the Federation rank treadmill!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on June 13, 2018, 07:21:24 PM
Umm you don't need trade rank, you need faction rep with whatever the FED faction is you are looking at. My humble advice, head to Gang Yun and grab every data mission you find for Zhara (YOU WILL NEED A MEDIUM PAD SHIP)- flip the board if you have to. Then fly over to Zhana and deliver all of those and pick up everything for Gang Yun. Rinse and repeat like 3 times and you should be close to allied with all the factions at each station. Then it should pop and you'll have plenty of rep to pick it up. Do a bunch more and you'll be rear admiral in a few nights.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on June 13, 2018, 07:34:10 PM
Umm you don't need trade rank, you need faction rep with whatever the FED faction is you are looking at. My humble advice, head to Gang Yun and grab every data mission you find for Zhara (YOU WILL NEED A MEDIUM PAD SHIP)- flip the board if you have to. Then fly over to Zhana and deliver all of those and pick up everything for Gang Yun. Rinse and repeat like 3 times and you should be close to allied with all the factions at each station. Then it should pop and you'll have plenty of rep to pick it up. Do a bunch more and you'll be rear admiral in a few nights.

I guess I’m just not understanding how rank works...  I’ve done a ton of trade and passenger missions pretty much all out of Lembava.  I’ve already 100%ed my federation rep to ally.  I’ve got a type 7 hauler, a vulture, an orca, and an asp x, which is basically my daily driver.  Plus. 127mil in the bank.  If I haven’t already ranked with the federation then how the hell do you?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 13, 2018, 09:04:45 PM
I guess I’m just not understanding how rank works...  I’ve done a ton of trade and passenger missions pretty much all out of Lembava.  I’ve already 100%ed my federation rep to ally.  I’ve got a type 7 hauler, a vulture, an orca, and an asp x, which is basically my daily driver.  Plus. 127mil in the bank.  If I haven’t already ranked with the federation then how the hell do you?

Reputation is an independent value from Rank (although the rank missions refer to "Rep").

Your rank is with the Navy of the relevant superpower. To raise Federal Navy rank, you run missions that give REP+++ from any Federal aligned minor faction. Ignore similar missions from minor factions that are not Federal aligned. Generally they are data delivery type missions, or passenger missions. It's best to find a pair of systems where you can run the missions back and forth between the two systems, accepting as many missions as you can hold on each run (they stack). Each time you hand in a mission, choose the REP+++ reward where possible, or REP++ if that's not available.

For a long time, Sothis and Ceos were the two favoured systems to shuttle between for Federal rank, though I'm not sure how well they are working now. They are an isolated pair of systems so the missions are only to/from each other, nowhere else.

As you complete these missions, your Rank bar on the right-hand HUD will start to fill up.  Once you fill the Rank bar, you have to find and complete a mission whose name begins with "Federal Navy...", e.g. "Federal Navy Aquisition Contract...". It will be listed among the other usual missions. Completing one of those will cause your rank to tick over to the next level up.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 14, 2018, 12:05:46 AM
As I look at that shot, I see the issue ;  he has the rank ready to pop, he just needs to find a federation rank mission. 

Sometimes the rng fucks you and one doesn't pop for a while, but just keep scanning the boards and you'll see one.  It'll be labelled as a special fed navy mission.  Be aware, however, you're better at a station who likes you, 'cause it can generate and you're not 'friendly' enough to the home station to take it.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 14, 2018, 12:40:40 AM
Ironwood is right. You need that mission where the name begins with "Federal Navy..." something.

You might actually have enough rep/rank stored up for multiple ranks, but you need to do another "Federal Navy..." mission to get each one, until the Rank bar is not full.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on June 14, 2018, 04:37:16 AM
Yeah, at that level you'll almost certainly get Fed missions in a row if you're lucky.  Get your ass to a Fed station that loves you.  If it doesn't love you, hand in exploration data until it loves you.  That's how you get the women.   Bitches love exploration data.

On a related note, Sol is really pretty.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on June 14, 2018, 04:49:02 AM
Thanks so much, guys!  I'll just head to Lembava and flip the board till the appropriate mission pops.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 14, 2018, 04:50:34 AM
On a related note, Sol is really pretty.

Earth doesn't look like Earth though. It looks like some random Earthlike planet. I cannot see my house. Or even my continent.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on June 14, 2018, 04:53:05 AM
Yeah, at that level you'll almost certainly get Fed missions in a row if you're lucky.  Get your ass to a Fed station that loves you.  If it doesn't love you, hand in exploration data until it loves you.  That's how you get the women.   Bitches love exploration data.

On a related note, Sol is really pretty.


Actually, I just came back yesterday from a month long sightseeing mission near Sag A.  Detail scanned everything that was convenient/interesting along the way.  Made 85mil, and it took around 40 minutes just to turn everything in with the servers thinking and all.   :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on November 08, 2018, 06:21:00 AM
A little late to the party, but some of the changes coming down the pipe are interesting, especially the changes to mining.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWEVJLaSaEY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWEVJLaSaEY)

I've been playing this a little lately as I found a guide on how to get the Guardian Booster and sorted it out fairly swiftly.  It was a lot of fun and really, really pumped up the range on my Python (phrasing).  That said, the boost to the DBX was negligible, so you should research if it's worth it to you first...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on November 10, 2018, 11:10:50 AM
That video makes me want to go grind up cash for a full mining setup ship (instead of swapping parts in and out like a dirty poor).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on November 10, 2018, 11:30:55 AM
I have two Pythons, Sumerian Dream is my shooty and Boreworm is my dedicated miner.  He drills. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on November 11, 2018, 04:40:26 PM
I was playing a lot until August. Intending to get back into it. I unlocked lots of engineers before I went away, including the Painite one, so the last thing I want to do at the moment is mining :) But I was continuing to refine my Asp Explorer, my exploration ship. I haven't even had time to make a combat ship or think about Thargoids.

What I want to happen, and what I'm guessing they have 100 people working on the game for, is an expansion that adds the Andromeda galaxy (reached via Raxxla, obviously).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on November 12, 2018, 03:46:39 AM
What's weird about it all is the Guardian Booster may change your mind about what's your exploration ship.  It used to be my ASP and then it was the DBX and now I'm not sure because I fitted that booster, as mentioned, to the Python and now he's fast as fuck and also a lot more substantial than either of the other two.

It's confusing times.

With all these module changes, I really just wish they'd release 'Module Splitters' so that you can turn Big Bays into smaller bays.  It could work like the vehicle bays right now where you put one into a 2 Section and suddenly you've got 2 1 sections.  I'm sure there would be balancing issues, but the one thing that's bothered me about this game since page One is not having a docking computer on ALL my ships.  I have things to do man !




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on November 12, 2018, 04:28:16 AM
What's weird about it all is the Guardian Booster may change your mind about what's your exploration ship.  It used to be my ASP and then it was the DBX and now I'm not sure because I fitted that booster, as mentioned, to the Python and now he's fast as fuck and also a lot more substantial than either of the other two.

It's confusing times.

With all these module changes, I really just wish they'd release 'Module Splitters' so that you can turn Big Bays into smaller bays.  It could work like the vehicle bays right now where you put one into a 2 Section and suddenly you've got 2 1 sections.  I'm sure there would be balancing issues, but the one thing that's bothered me about this game since page One is not having a docking computer on ALL my ships.  I have things to do man !

*gasp...

Don't let those pro-manual docking acolytes let you hear that... there will be outrage, outrage i say!

I still fire this up from time to time but I can't be fussed with all the new shit, get overwhelmed, then stuck, then fly the Cutter around to a few places and log out. If they start doing the splitter thing... I might want to shift my attention back.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on November 17, 2018, 08:35:05 AM
I haven't seen any mention of bay splitters, but they've made the exploration scanner module an integrated part of the ship, and it no longer requires a slot.  And I've seen repeated requests to combine limpet controllers into a single module, and also for the docking computer to become integrated, since technically it's just software.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on November 20, 2018, 05:45:13 AM
It says something that though I play now and again I have not gone near an engineer nor have I even looked at how you see a Thargoid.

Engineering as I started reading about how to do it and got completely lost, and I never have bothered to go past that first impression as I dont see why its worth the dice roll I;ve heard you get a dice roll at the end. Fuck stupid casino grinding.

And Thargoids as I dont need more reasons to be reminded how much I suck.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on November 20, 2018, 11:33:35 AM
They changed engineering. It's definitely still a materials grind, but it's not as much of a dice roll now. You want to min/max, you can, just by grinding to unlock the engineers and grinding to obtain the materials. Luck factor was mostly taken out of it. Not that I think it's fun.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on November 20, 2018, 12:02:39 PM
I'm going to go further ;  Engineering is fun and relatively easy to get the mats these days.

What ISN'T is the grind to unlock the engineers.  That's still all kinds of bullshit.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on November 20, 2018, 07:28:06 PM
Doing laps of Dav's Hope is not fun.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on November 21, 2018, 01:22:51 AM
SAYS YOU !



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Cyrrex on November 21, 2018, 04:05:38 AM
I just re-installed this for some VR fun.  I also reset everything, because I don't remember what the fuck I am doing with anything.  It says a lot that I have played this game for 50 hours in virtual reality, and have only barely scratched the surface.  I have literally no idea what any of you are talking about.  I will be spending the next 10 hours of play time getting my controls figured out (extra important when you cannot actually see your keyboard IRL) and figuring out how to make the HUD green instead of that ghastly orange.

If any VR owning readers out there have not tried E:D, you are missing out.  Just tooling around star systems is something else.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on November 22, 2018, 10:54:02 AM
Web-based HUD color simulator (http://arkku.com/elite/hud_editor/) (includes instructions on which config.xml file to edit, lower left corner).
List of 30+ color configs (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259311).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Cyrrex on November 23, 2018, 08:13:44 AM
Perfect, just what I was looking for.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on December 13, 2018, 03:24:16 PM
Elite: Dangerous is 76% off at Steam right now.

Cheapest it has ever been, if you've ever thought about buying it. Get the the Commander Deluxe Edition for the game as it is meant to be played.

https://store.steampowered.com/sub/268720/


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Cyrrex on December 13, 2018, 10:38:02 PM
If I already have the vanilla base game, is it the Horizons pack alone that gives all the extra content?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on December 14, 2018, 02:46:42 AM
Yes. They called Horizons a season pass, but it turned into a massive ongoing expansion. It's all-in-one. The only other things you can spend $ on are ship paint jobs, ship kits, flight suits, bobbleheads, etc. But those are from the Frontier Store, not Steam.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Cyrrex on December 14, 2018, 02:54:14 AM
Cool, thx.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on December 14, 2018, 03:00:39 AM
The new exploration changes are pretty decent.  This has been my "chill at work between appointments while watching Netflix" go to game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 14, 2018, 03:04:21 AM
I was finding that everything was prettier, faster and more responsive last night. 

I was tired, so I didn't get the chance to do a lot of scanning or mining, but that's the duty for tonight...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 22, 2018, 02:39:33 AM
First Foray into mining.

I don't have a fucking CLUE what I'm doing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 22, 2018, 04:23:16 AM
I'm also fucked off now that everything you do in the game seems to need the detailed surface scanner.  Which is a 1 slot that you probably have to put somewhere NOT 1, just like the cunting docking computer.

Fuck this game.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on December 22, 2018, 04:35:39 AM
Anyone else signed up for Distant Worlds 2 (http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Distant_Worlds_II)?

Massive expedition (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/452358-Distant-Worlds-2-A-Journey-of-Discovery) with about 5000 players taking part so far, starting January 13. Player-driven content, but backed by Frontier. Out to Beagle Point via Sag A, then back home via the USS Voyager route, but visiting POIs along the way. The account you use for this will be tied up with it for an initial 20 weeks plus the voyage home. I think this event will dominate the Elite: Dangerous news cycle during that time, unless Frontier launches an expansion.

You can sign up here (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/404790-DW2-Distant-Worlds-II-Fleet-Roster-Sign-Up-Thread). Save your sign-up URL as instructed, so that you can go back to it and  change details later.

I've signed up with my Asp Explorer, in just an "explorer" role. Now to find the time to log in and get a Guardian FSD booster before January...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on December 25, 2018, 08:04:31 AM
I don't have a fucking CLUE what I'm doing.

Mining Tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSLqDINgciw&feature=youtu.be).

But, servers are crashing since yesterday, and because of the holidays it's not getting fixed very fast.  The 75% discount increased their playerbase a lot, and they haven't upgraded the servers yet.  Also, they moved the asteroids and the mission boards to global servers, and those servers are getting pounded.

In any case, right now everyone is abusing a bug, where if you install 4 abrasion blasters instead of 1, and manage to make all 4 shots land at the same time (by being very near and right above each node), you get 4 Void Opals per node instead of 1.  So normally an asteroid gives 20-30 opals, with this it gives 50-75.

Anyway, track where to sell with Inara (https://inara.cz/goods/10250/#commodityslotsellmax).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on December 25, 2018, 11:28:10 AM
Mining Tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSLqDINgciw&feature=youtu.be).

What. The. Fuck.

That's that's turned a fairly relaxing activity that you can listen to a podcast and chill doing a fairly uncomplicated task, into several layers of complete bollox. Why complicate mining ffs? That only appeals to "elitist" scum that will probably run bots anyway.

I really feel like they are tinkering around the edges and bollixing up inconsequential stuff at this point, rather than doing something sumstantial


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 25, 2018, 11:45:04 AM
Well, here's the thing :

The actual Core Mining is fun and exciting.  It literally adds an element to mining that should have been there from the start.  You can still do the relaxing thing if you want, but you're not forced to.  The Core Mining is also quite profitable.

However :

The Drill Mining is a complete fucking waste of time and neither more profitable nor more fun than normal mining.  It's a waste and I'm not sure what they were thinking there.

So, having core mining and normal mining makes sense to me, but where they've also fucked it up is in the implementation, to wit, they made core mining so hugely stupidly profitable that there was an immediate rush on it which in turn forced it back into the box of 'Wait, this is fucking stupid because everyone's mined all the cores and now we can't find any and I hate this fucking game'


Also, the new scanning is just way too fucking complicated and frankly them putting in 3 or 4 new paragraphs of controls in the game that, by the way, won't implement if you have a custom control system is FUCKING STUPID.  It took me way too long to realise that all the new stuff I couldn't access was because I literally had no way of controlling it until I went in and spent about an hour putting in new keybindings.

Also, the new mining and scanning has once again thrown into sharp relief the fact that all the ships are mostly the same because the 'hardpoint' system in the game is just fuck stupid.  Especially for miners now who have to have a fair bit of stuff, or choose ONE mining setup.

But hey ho.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on December 25, 2018, 12:01:14 PM
I mined a bit when I played more than I do now. Was ok, but kinda boring and pretty superficial. Always felt like they just tacked it on. This... well this has me curious.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on December 26, 2018, 04:48:50 PM
'Wait, this is fucking stupid because everyone's mined all the cores and now we can't find any and I hate this fucking game.'

I think the aim was to eventually deplete the "bubble of civilization" of cores, and force people to eventually explore outside the bubble to find pristine belts. 

EDDB shows 600 pristine + 2000 major ice belts within the bubble, and similar numbers for rocky and metallic (it's not just Void Opals and LT Diamonds that sell; you can also get 1M for Benitoite, Serendibite, Grandidierite, etc., from non-ice belts).  It'll take quite some time for the player base to deplete these roids, and it's more likely that the high priced market orders will vanish from stations before we deplete.

But in any case, the Bubble is small, 20,000 stars, 150 LY diameter.  The galaxy has billions of stars, and IMO exploration-based resource finding is a better way of doing it than having everything listed in a searchable database.  Belts in the bubble will still have thousands of asteroids that are mineable the old way, but the high-profit stuff will eventually involve flying out of the bubble, some 500-1000 LY (not even far) and bringing your load back in.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on December 28, 2018, 08:10:05 AM
I slapped mining gear on my cutter. I flew 10k out. I found a good void opal hotspot on an unscanned, undiscovered planet. I joined 512 tons of core. I scanned planets on the way out and on the way in. I got a billion. It was the most satisfying of gameplay loops.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on December 28, 2018, 07:14:05 PM
Newbie jumps in an Adder (800k to fit for mining), gets 8T cargo full from 1 asteroid, makes 10 million.  Buys DBX (fitted at 5 million), gets another asteroid, makes 20 million.  Buys AspX (fitted at 10 million, 96T cargo space), gets 6 asteroids, makes 100 million (per hour). 

It's pretty awesome for all the new people they got with their recent holidays price reduction of 75% off.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 31, 2018, 05:47:19 AM
Finally found an extremely nice and full Void Crystals spawn and took a full hold of Python back to sell.

I bought a Mamba with the proceeds, made it A rated all over, engineered it, took it into combat, only to find it truly, truly sucks as a ship.

It's fucking awful chaps, please God, do avoid this ship.  Sure, it looks the baws, but it's AWFUL.




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on December 31, 2018, 02:09:09 PM
Yup, they over-nerfed it, and the wrong way.  People were asking for a "just slightly less agile than FDL and slightly faster" and they made it super-fast, then less fast and unable to corner at all.

Fortunately, it has the EXACT same critical internals (power plant, etc.) as the Fer De Lance, so get a FDL, transfer all your engineered parts to it, and sell the Mamba.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on December 31, 2018, 02:20:51 PM
I already had a Fer De Lance though.   :awesome_for_real:

I dunno, I'm still just casting about for a ship that's somehow fun and different.  I love my Cutter and I have two Pythons and both the DBX and ASP sit in the garage, but beyond that the four or so other ships I have just rot there because they're boring and samey.

They really need to DO something about that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on January 07, 2019, 11:40:57 AM


Also, the new scanning is just way too fucking complicated and frankly them putting in 3 or 4 new paragraphs of controls in the game that, by the way, won't implement if you have a custom control system is FUCKING STUPID.  It took me way too long to realise that all the new stuff I couldn't access was because I literally had no way of controlling it until I went in and spent about an hour putting in new keybindings.

Also, the new mining and scanning has once again thrown into sharp relief the fact that all the ships are mostly the same because the 'hardpoint' system in the game is just fuck stupid.  Especially for miners now who have to have a fair bit of stuff, or choose ONE mining setup.

But hey ho.



Scanning in exploration is now so much better that it's ridiculous.  Jump to new system, throttle down in witch space.  Honk system and jump to the scanner.  Spend a couple of minutes scanning every body instead of having to fly at them, possibly getting trapped in their gravity well.  Any interesting/lucrative planets can get surface mapped for even more money.

I just got back from taking a passenger to Sag A.  I only surface scanned metal rich, water worlds, earth like planets, or gas giants with some type of life on the way to Sag A.  I just ran and honked on the way back, and my payday was around half a billion.  Exploration is stupid lucrative now!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 07, 2019, 12:35:27 PM
Yes.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on January 08, 2019, 02:22:31 AM
Finally found an extremely nice and full Void Crystals spawn and took a full hold of Python back to sell.

I bought a Mamba with the proceeds, made it A rated all over, engineered it, took it into combat, only to find it truly, truly sucks as a ship.

It's fucking awful chaps, please God, do avoid this ship.  Sure, it looks the baws, but it's AWFUL.




I heard that about the Mamba.  Disappointing, because she's a sexy bitch.  I used my recent bonanza to fully A rate a Krait Mk II, and really enjoy it.  I want the pinnacle of firepower, but really fucking hate flying an Anaconda.  I just refit mine for mining (which I haven't really done much of).  Is it worth grinding Fed rank to get the corvette?  I'm almost at Lieutenant Commander right now, and am just dreading grinding out data missions for rank.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 08, 2019, 06:30:06 AM
The Corvette would be my only real choice as I DESPISE non centerline cockpits. Which Means I'd have to go and kiss face with the Federation which I would hate as I'm an Imperial at heart...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on January 08, 2019, 07:21:44 AM
The Corvette would be my only real choice as I DESPISE non centerline cockpits. Which Means I'd have to go and kiss face with the Federation which I would hate as I'm an Imperial at heart...

My favorite ship has been without a doubt the Asp Explorer.  Just a phenomenal little workhorse.  Fast enough, super nimble and more than enough jump range for just about anything.  I never fitted it for combat, but I bet it would do just fine for it's class.

My only elite status is in exploration, and I did almost all of it in the Asp X.  The conda can jump further, but its like flying aType 9.  Fuck that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on January 08, 2019, 03:32:55 PM
AspX is a favorite for mining, too; has all the slots and just enough cargo that you don't spend too long in the belts..  1 Bil (625 Void Opals, about 42 asteroids) would get you Elite in Trading too.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 08, 2019, 03:49:03 PM
God damn it, am I going to have to dig this game up in my PS4 library again?
 :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on January 08, 2019, 05:58:06 PM
Every time I read people here talking about it, I restart it on Steam. I then spend thirty minutes crashing on landing in the tutorial.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 08, 2019, 06:07:39 PM
I keep it installed, even keep my joystick plugged in, but always seem to find something else to play. A large part of the problem is that I don't want to spend a chunk of time re-learning how to play, what my goals were when I quit, etc. If we had some sort of group play night I would probably make an effort to jump in and bombard Gulp and IW with noob questions.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 08, 2019, 06:23:55 PM
I think I only have a krait and a cutter in my stables. But mining i always liked, now you people are telling me I can make credits doing it? please stop.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 08, 2019, 10:53:49 PM
Every time I read people here talking about it, I restart it on Steam. I then spend thirty minutes crashing on landing in the tutorial.

Hello from 1341 hours played (Steam says).

I am annoyed that I have to relearn exploration at the moment. All I wanted to do was log in and get the Guardian FSD booster and go on the Distant Worlds II expedition. But I had to remap eleventy seven keys and figure out how to honk and mode switch and I still don't know how to detailed surface scan and map. But I made it to the Guardian structures, fought a few Guardian sentinels and had to log off because I was falling asleep.

I have four days until DWII departs, between work, gardening, the needs of a pregnant wife, and a weekend away. This is totally not going to happen, but I need it to happen so that my account can be stuck out in the black to make sure that I don't have to relearn mining.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 09, 2019, 02:26:28 AM
I think I only have a krait and a cutter in my stables. But mining i always liked, now you people are telling me I can make credits doing it? please stop.

Just to reinforce, I just hit Elite Trader solely due to selling Void Opals.  It's crazy broken at the moment, when you can find them.  I now have 'fuck you, I'm flying this cutter into the sun' money.  Mining is worth a shitload and even tho I have issues with the implementation, the core mining is actually fun..... once you find a core.

I keep it installed, even keep my joystick plugged in, but always seem to find something else to play. A large part of the problem is that I don't want to spend a chunk of time re-learning how to play, what my goals were when I quit, etc. If we had some sort of group play night I would probably make an effort to jump in and bombard Gulp and IW with noob questions.

Feel free.  I'm more than happy to kick up a session or answer any questions.  I STILL haven't done multi-crew ('cause I have no friends, boo hoo, poor me) so I'm always open to a good pester.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on January 09, 2019, 04:16:14 AM
This is one of those games that is initially daunting, but really becomes second hand simple once you've played it for a bit.  You can do the legit joystick/throttle setup, but I just use a 360 gamepad.

And don't sweat fucking up in the beginning.  Sidewinders are free, so crash away.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Cyrrex on January 09, 2019, 04:27:09 AM
I cannot fathom playing this game on a 360 controller.  How on earth can you simplify things down to that level?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 09, 2019, 04:34:28 AM
I tried it after I got my 360  controller for Dark Souls.  Couldn't manage it.  Keyboard and Mouse works fine for me....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on January 09, 2019, 04:51:42 AM
I cannot fathom playing this game on a 360 controller.  How on earth can you simplify things down to that level?

The face buttons all work in coordination with the d-pad.  So the a button controls your galaxy/system map along with supercruise, and system jumps, x handles weapons/utility mounts and scanners, y is targeting, and b handles stuff like landing gear and miscellaneous.  The shoulder buttons handle the throttle, and the triggers handle primary/secondary fire.

Again, it looks daunting, but it's pretty elegant once you use it.  I run mine under "classic context" in the control menu.  The only time I use the mouse is if I need to sort through stars in the galaxy map.

ETA: just hold down the face button and a context menu pops up telling you everything you can do.  Easy.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Cyrrex on January 09, 2019, 05:11:38 AM
Interesting.  As I go on about endlessly sometimes, I have only ever played this game in VR, and one of the main challenges there is having a hotas on the one hand managing all the heavy use stuff, but then having to blindly (literally) use a keyboard with the other hand for less used but still really important functions.  I really want the hotas for the immersion of it, but I am suddenly wondering if a controller wouldn't end up being the superior choice on the whole....


So if you are targeting, for example....do you hold down Y for a context menu every time, or does that just change the current function of what Y does (so that you can just tap Y every time you need to cycle targets, etc.).  Does that make sense?  Like, tapping X makes you fire your weapon, but holding it down changes it from firing function to scanning function?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 09, 2019, 06:19:56 AM
I have the HOTAS for Ps4 which works really well for me when I was playing. Guess I gotta hunt that down and get my liver diseased, coal dust covered pilot back in the mining Cutter.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on January 09, 2019, 06:32:02 AM

So if you are targeting, for example....do you hold down Y for a context menu every time, or does that just change the current function of what Y does (so that you can just tap Y every time you need to cycle targets, etc.).  Does that make sense?  Like, tapping X makes you fire your weapon, but holding it down changes it from firing function to scanning function?

Holding y down will show you what y plus a whole lot of other button combinations will do.  Once you learn what every combo does you can just do them, but the context menu exists if you get forgetful.  A quick tap changes targets.  You can remap those functions in the controls menu.

ETA:  I play the game with my Oculus sometimes, and it totally works well.  Can only really use the VR for an hour or so, though before the headaches kick in.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on January 10, 2019, 06:44:38 PM
I then spend thirty minutes crashing on landing in the tutorial.

NSFW (language) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdzvrUmcb10).

I'm an explorer (https://imgur.com/a/yFDvmdm).  Currently in the eye of Barnard's Loop (https://imgur.com/a/guDloAn), which I had to fly around to get to, because the devs locked whole swaths of space.

EDIT:  BTW, there's a huge expedition (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/404790-DW2-Distant-Worlds-II-Fleet-Roster-Sign-Up-Thread) about to take off across the galaxy, some 8000 pilots flying in Open, 4 weeks out there.  Game allows "Multicrew", you just pick one of them and teleport your viewpoint to their copilot seat, see what they see without leaving your base.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 11, 2019, 03:11:11 AM
Fuck all of you. Just watched a few mining youtube vids and had to dig out my god damn hotas. There goes my weekend...luckily it is shitty cold out and supposed to snow all day Saturday.

edit: oh yeah..... This is what I wanted out of mining. Now, about the limpet AI. It actually is better than it was, but still... fuckers are still dumb.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 16, 2019, 12:20:55 AM
Commander Deluxe Edition (best current Elite package) is 76% off at Humble.  (https://www.humblebundle.com/store/elite-dangerous-commander-deluxe-edition?hmb_source=search_bar)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 16, 2019, 01:35:14 AM
I'm starting to realise that the only way in hell I'm going to get my Combat badges is by gratuitous winging up of friends that I don't have.

If you're on at any point and see me on, let me know if you're up for shooting some assholes.  Currently doing the community mission that is 'Shoot Fuckers' and it's … not going well.'


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 16, 2019, 01:57:34 AM
Does this require being actually effective at shooting said assholes?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 16, 2019, 02:24:37 AM
Effectiveness Increases With Numbers.  Would You like to Know More ?

(In seriousness, I wouldn't want anyone to die on my account, but I'm finding more and more with these events if you're not in a wing then it's going to go one of two ways ;  you're either going to own and run out of enemies real quick or you're going to start to lose and before you know it everyone is shooting at you.  It's kinda worse when you're playing in Open because they seem to have changed tagging a bit in that I was getting no kills despite helping some other bloke though I wasn't winged with him.  Then two real guys turned up on the enemy side and I got gutted.  So, buyer beware.)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 16, 2019, 12:35:15 PM
Is this something you can do in a friends only session or is it only Open? I am deeply out of practice (and was never super effective to begin with), but I don't mind taking a few hits if I can depend on not getting ganked by some stranger at the exact wrong moment.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 16, 2019, 03:41:02 PM
Yup.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 16, 2019, 10:42:43 PM
Late last night I unlocked the Guardian FSD Booster which took my Asp Explorer's jump range to 68.38 ly. Updated the engineering on my Power Plant for more juice. Tweaked the final build I'm taking with me into the black.

And launched into Distant Worlds II. Still 4000 ly behind the fleet, but I'll catch up, at least for a while.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 17, 2019, 01:44:09 AM
I mentioned the FSD Booster a couple of pages back ;  it's trivially easy to acquire and is awesome in every way.  Given that probably some of you had scanners in a 2/3 bay, now you can increase your range for nothing.

It's well worth your time.  Even my little Ferdie can now jump reasonably.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 17, 2019, 03:20:00 AM
I mentioned the FSD Booster a couple of pages back ;  it's trivially easy to acquire and is awesome in every way.  Given that probably some of you had scanners in a 2/3 bay, now you can increase your range for nothing.

It's well worth your time.  Even my little Ferdie can now jump reasonably.

Here's my exploration ship now (https://s.orbis.zone/1vbe), called Scarpa (named after the walking boot brand I have used in a lot of real-life exploration).

The greyed-out items are switched off until needed, to reduce power usage on the engineered 2A power plant. One thing that might need explanation is the chaff launcher - that's purely for DWII group photos because it looks like fireworks.

Some of the engineering is not grade 5, or not up-to-date. I could get it over 70 ly jump range if I revisited engineering and adequately gathered materials first.... but what's a couple of light years for all that.

When doing the Guardian FSD booster unlock, I followed this guide (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/438289-Walkthrough-Guardian-Module-Blueprints). And the components list in the first spoilered image in this post (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/437846-Simple-Guide-for-Unlocking-all-of-the-Guardian-Tech). I was in a real hurry, so it was confusing at first. Being in an SRV in a low gravity environment is not ideal for moving around structures, but once I got the hang of the layout, it was fine.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 17, 2019, 04:18:43 AM
That's the walkthrough I used as well.  Even for someone who's as shit at driving an SRV as me, it's a piece of cake.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Viin on January 17, 2019, 02:44:46 PM
Whoa whoa whoa, there's spreadsheets? And here I stopped playing because I couldn't get my VR setup working the way I liked ..


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 17, 2019, 05:38:01 PM
PS4 update hit today. Fixed the dual ablation creating 2 rocks - no more double yields. Good while it lasted... Still making bank on cracking eggs, just not as quickly.

Was using my Krait MKII which worked great, but I never loved the ship. Too manta ray like or something... So I drydocked it and grabbed the python again. Nice that all my cores transferred over since they are all engineered out the ass.

Come to think of it, I actually started mining with my cutter but was too much ship. Never even filled one of the 256 holds on a trip because there is only so much I can take. Medium ships all the way.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 19, 2019, 06:40:19 AM
I used to Mine with the Type 6, and it was great fun. Lots of Cargo and it was maneuverable as hell.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 20, 2019, 04:59:48 AM
Made the 5421 ly trek out to Omega Nebula where the Distant Worlds 2 people are. Swapped out some gear for mining equipment (there's an asteroid base to equip at) and got myself onto the lowest rung of the community goal, in the hope of getting a decal reward.

Took a look at the system's news reports and 5032 ships have passed through in the last 24 hours. System chat is so spammy. The crime report shows mass murder, including by Harry Potter and SDC, so if you're heading out that way don't travel in Open or you'll go 5k ly for nothing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 20, 2019, 03:03:11 PM
Its easy splatting for the Dipshits as the explorers will be stripped light, which means no armour and little if any shields. Which is the best way to look for gud fites, and encourage people to PVP.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 20, 2019, 05:18:32 PM
Fuck everything about playing Open during any event.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 21, 2019, 02:06:13 AM
Yeah.  It's pretty retarded that even now there are people who will look at the UO system of policing and think 'It just needed MORE hope to work !'

Idiots.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 21, 2019, 05:37:23 PM
In other news... traded in the Cutter for a corvette. Now using that as my mining vessel. Already cracked 700m even after buying the modules and running around engineering them.
Now with sauce:
(https://i.imgur.com/0lx1haS.jpg)
Life is so much better when you have credits.   :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 22, 2019, 12:03:41 AM
I have about 5M, with a decently kitted Vulture and and an Asp Explorer kitted out for exploration. Trying to level up all the engineers but having to go tooling around looking for mats makes me stabby. Is there a good up-to-date guide for engineers? Like which ones to get first, which can be ignored, which tweaks to buy, etc?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 22, 2019, 01:26:46 AM
From my experience, you want Thrusters and FSD first.  After that, it's really, really up to you - If you're a fighter, you'll want shields and pew-pew and then other 'combat' stuff upgraded.  The trick to getting the mats is to get yourself to some of the spots that drop the big ones (Dav's Hope, Crashed Anaconda, other oddities) and then once you have a bank of large mats you can disassemble them for the mats you actually need at a material vendor.

I do find it funny that we still talk about 5 million like it means anything and is not just 3 tons of Void Opals.   :why_so_serious:

Money means nothing in this game.  You can start in a sidey and get millions scanning to get your miner ship and then you're voiding like a maniac.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 22, 2019, 06:21:15 PM
5m is what I have because I don't want to re-learn how to mine or the new exploration stuff. I get anxious enough fighting the UI just bouncing around the galaxy; actually accomplishing new things sounds a lot like work.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on January 22, 2019, 07:12:15 PM
Honestly that's why I don't log in. Every time I want to I think of all the changes I'd have to relearn and I just get scared and don't.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 22, 2019, 07:19:01 PM
From my experience, you want Thrusters and FSD first.  After that, it's really, really up to you - If you're a fighter, you'll want shields and pew-pew and then other 'combat' stuff upgraded.  The trick to getting the mats is to get yourself to some of the spots that drop the big ones (Dav's Hope, Crashed Anaconda, other oddities) and then once you have a bank of large mats you can disassemble them for the mats you actually need at a material vendor.

I do find it funny that we still talk about 5 million like it means anything and is not just 3 tons of Void Opals.   :why_so_serious:

Money means nothing in this game.  You can start in a sidey and get millions scanning to get your miner ship and then you're voiding like a maniac.

(https://i.imgur.com/hhP1jLB.jpg)

Like a maniac you say?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 22, 2019, 07:41:32 PM
5m is what I have because I don't want to re-learn how to mine or the new exploration stuff. I get anxious enough fighting the UI just bouncing around the galaxy; actually accomplishing new things sounds a lot like work.
Honestly that's why I don't log in. Every time I want to I think of all the changes I'd have to relearn and I just get scared and don't.

I was that way, too. I haven't learned how to do the new mining (you can still mine the old way, which is what I did for the community goal above), but it looks exciting and explodey. And I made it 80% of the way to the Distant Worlds expedition waypoint before I figured out the new exploration deal.

Basically there are now two HUD modes: fighting stuff (red), and peaceful stuff like mining and exploration (blue). You switch between them with one hotkey.

You still do an old-fashioned "honk" first for exploration. If that reveals planets you're interested in, you press a hotkey to open a new mode called the FSS (Full Spectrum System) scanner. This works like tuning an old-fashioned radio and telescopically zooming in on a signal (but the signals are each type of planet, and then each planet within its type). The hotkeys you bind for this are for moving around, tuning, and zooming in. When you have tuned enough that you can zoom in fully on a planet, you have discovered it (information about its composition comes up, and if you're the first you will get your name on it if you sell the data).

There's no longer any need to fly up to the planet for that. You just need to be in the system. You don't need any special equipment (Advanced Discovery Scanner no longer exists, freeing up a slot for things like a Guardian FSD Booster).

However, if you have a Detailed Surface Scanner (DSS) and fly close enough to a planet that you have discovered, you can now map it for extra $$, and get your name on an additional line. This too is a new mode brought up with a hotkey. You then point and shoot around the planet with drones that map its surface bit by bit. It's like firing guided missiles. You have infinite drones, but you are scored on your efficiency with them (engineering on your DSS has been converted to aid the effectiveness of your drones). And that's that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 23, 2019, 01:24:53 AM
What's interesting about that is if you're discovering for cash, doing the detailed scans actually loses you money because of the time it takes.   :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 23, 2019, 01:26:29 AM

(https://i.imgur.com/hhP1jLB.jpg)

Like a maniac you say?

Yeah, that's a haul and a half.  About 365.5 million in there ?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 23, 2019, 03:12:11 AM
220m - I didn't feel like flying all over god's creation looking for a station buying for 1.6m. I settled for the next tier down - 760k per. plus got a good price on the alex. At this point, I'm not even in it for the coin anymore though that is a huge perk. I really am enamored with the exploding roids. I love the animation and sound...all of it.

If I was a betting man, I'd say the market will crash soon and everything will be reduced. I can't see it continuing. One of the main gates has always been credits and now that has evaporated. Looking like engineering has taken up the mantle along with the guardian stuff.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 23, 2019, 03:26:50 AM
When I filled my Conda, I used the DB to find the top dollar station ;  I wasn't going to do that shit again.   :why_so_serious:

Don't get me wrong, I like the new Core Mining and it's fun, but it's also a lot more nerve wracking than the previous pew pew mining.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 23, 2019, 03:33:13 AM
I'm sure I'll get tired of it at some point, but I am definitely addicted to the mining slot machine right now. I hope they adjust the prices a bit and make subsurface mining a bit more lucrative. Right now it is the forgotten child in all this. That said, I think the subsurface mining with the drilling missiles is the most engaging.  Maybe I'll start looking at mining missions a little more closely - I still have to farm alliance rep and get elite in trading as well.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 23, 2019, 03:39:26 AM
What's interesting about that is if you're discovering for cash, doing the detailed scans actually loses you money because of the time it takes.   :why_so_serious:

Thousands of light years from Sol, on a nine-month discovery expedition in the black, what is this cash you speak of.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 23, 2019, 03:44:31 AM
What's interesting about that is if you're discovering for cash, doing the detailed scans actually loses you money because of the time it takes.   :why_so_serious:

Thousands of light years from Sol, on a nine-month discovery expedition in the black, what is this cash you speak of.

It's only for the working people. You fucking hippies on some journey of self discovery are paid in the experience and wonder of your expedition.  :why_so_serious:

So this DW thing is a bunch of coordinated mapping to the distant center of the galaxy that a huge amount of people are partaking in...right? That's a lot of coin in exploration going by what I get just for honking around in the bubble looking for cash crops in ice rings. Be a shame if they came back to the bubble in open. I'd hate to get all the way back and have SDC blow me up before I hit a station to sell my info. That would make me quit the game completely.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Cyrrex on January 23, 2019, 03:45:41 AM
I wish I understood half of what is being written here, as it sounds fun.  Only thing I have discovered since my last post in the thread is that "yes, it does seem you can use and xbox controller for this".


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 23, 2019, 04:07:09 AM
So this DW thing is a bunch of coordinated mapping to the distant center of the galaxy that a huge amount of people are partaking in...right? That's a lot of coin in exploration going by what I get just for honking around in the bubble looking for cash crops in ice rings. Be a shame if they came back to the bubble in open. I'd hate to get all the way back and have SDC blow me up before I hit a station to sell my info. That would make me quit the game completely.

There are now remote asteroid bases and the like, in far-flung regions. At the moment the DW2 expedition is based in a nebula 5000 ly from Sol, where there is a mining company base that has Universal Cartographics to sell exploration data at. The Colonia region also has dozens of inhabited systems with many starports and planetary bases, so it's similar to the bubble for selling data.

One of the main points of the expedition is to build a starport in a system near Sagittarius A, at the centre of the galaxy, which will also become a place to sell data and possibly the centre of a new inhabited region. The massive Community Goal that's just about to complete is DW2 participants mining materials for the starport. It's supported by Frontier and is a lot more than a mapping expedition: https://www.distantworlds2.space

FWIW I'm apparently worth 577 million credits, most of which came from exploration data (partly trips into the black, partly Road To Riches). The rest came from trading and passenger missions. I'm sure you're worth billions. It's impossible to achieve everything you want in this game, so I've decided to focus on what catches my interest and forget about kicking goals (unless a goal catches my interest). I like the way they've set up long-distance exploration to be an accidental source of a reasonable income.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on January 23, 2019, 04:39:07 AM
I have to admit, I like the way Frontier organize the addition of new bases in the game. Having the community have to hit goals in order for a new base to be added is a very cool touch in this game.

I'm a bubble boy and will rarely if ever venture out (probably poisoned that well when I did the Road to Riches when PS4 version released to grind to the Conda and then Elite in Exploration). That said, mining has been my thing since it was an option and not a very good option at that. I did my rep grinding and what not, but when I wanted to decompress, I'd be looking up pristine metallic rings online and venturing off to shoot rocks.

I have noticed recently when I have been mining in more popular spots, I get mission updates about something going on near me that I should look into. I normally just toss those into the bin, but I might start paying attention to those now that I have a ship that doesn't take shit from anything. Yesterday I logged in at the mining ring I was previously stripping down and had a 3/3 wing group of NPC pirates come after me. An eagle, a viper, and an adder all started scanning me. The 2 class 4 efficient beams with thermal vent basically liquefied the eagle and the viper without either of them turning to fire on me. The adder also died really quickly once I brought the ship around. Barely felt any dmg in the first ring of shields from the adder.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on January 23, 2019, 05:05:46 AM
I wish I understood half of what is being written here, as it sounds fun.  Only thing I have discovered since my last post in the thread is that "yes, it does seem you can use and xbox controller for this".

Dude, just ask.

Also, it's mostly less fun than it sounds.



 :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Cyrrex on January 23, 2019, 05:13:09 AM
Well the amusing thing is that, according to steam, I have 50 hours logged in this game  :awesome_for_real:

Some of that is wasted time, but most of it is just getting to grips with the various controls, running a bunch of missions, upgrading things and buying new ships, etc.  Never really getting under the surface of anything, but enjoying it at least on a superficial.  And all in VR.  Then I step away from the game for whatever reason, pick it up again and feel like I have to start all over.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on February 09, 2019, 05:51:16 PM
Well, so far Distant Worlds 2 for me is mostly a jump-honk-scoop rush from point A to point B in the minimal time I've had available to play, then logging off for a week until the next waypoint is announced. But I did manage to capture these screenshots (Conflux Delta Site and Rusty Net Nebula) and map half a dozen unexplored systems.

(https://i.imgur.com/UtSFfG6.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/0dj5OnO.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/L0XQYNS.jpg)

Edit: Still travelling... ringed star at Collection of Wonders, and taking off from Sacaqawea Space Port, in a nebula about halfway to Colonia.

(https://i.imgur.com/yHzrmTi.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/hZRuRTY.jpg)




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on March 04, 2019, 07:28:51 PM
After owning this game for I year I finally registered it and started playing three days ago. Having a blast so far!  I'm 155LY from the Road to Riches so I'm just puttering my way towards it in my now souped up sidewinder, scanning, doing courier missions and the occasional passenger going my way. 6 Mil in the bank now. One death to an NPC pirate that jumped me while I was trying to figure out the FSS.

Oh, using Mouse and Keyboard config I Googled some stuff seems a little wonky/consoleitish-ish but mostly pretty good.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 04, 2019, 10:15:36 PM
Look forward to hearing more of your newbie experiences. Road to Riches is a bit soul-destroying if you do it all at once, but it does result in riches, which is pleasant but bypasses a lot of the things you would otherwise do in the early game.

I'm now out at Sagittarius A* with the Distant Worlds II expedition. There's a new full-sized station a short hop away called Explorer's Anchorage, in Stuemeae FG-Y d7561. Which is good, because after a 12,000 ly slog to catch up with the expedition, I jumped into Sag A in Open and got ganked by Smiling Dog Crew. Fortunately I'd already visited Explorer's Anchorage and sold all my data, so I just respawned there.

There's a community goal starting in a couple of days to fully fit out Explorer's Anchorage, and then we're off towards Beagle Point and no more stations.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Mandella on March 05, 2019, 08:57:20 AM
Look forward to hearing more of your newbie experiences. Road to Riches is a bit soul-destroying if you do it all at once, but it does result in riches, which is pleasant but bypasses a lot of the things you would otherwise do in the early game.

I'm now out at Sagittarius A* with the Distant Worlds II expedition. There's a new full-sized station a short hop away called Explorer's Anchorage, in Stuemeae FG-Y d7561. Which is good, because after a 12,000 ly slog to catch up with the expedition, I jumped into Sag A in Open and got ganked by Smiling Dog Crew. Fortunately I'd already visited Explorer's Anchorage and sold all my data, so I just respawned there.

There's a community goal starting in a couple of days to fully fit out Explorer's Anchorage, and then we're off towards Beagle Point and no more stations.

I haven't played in a while (Elite is one of those games you sorta gotta live in the play, and I just don't have time nowadays), but how are stations handled outside the bubble? Do you just find them, or do players get to establish them in new territory?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 05, 2019, 01:57:08 PM
how are stations handled outside the bubble? Do you just find them, or do players get to establish them in new territory?

As I understand it, there are a couple of parts to this, all handled privately through community/tech support.

An established player group, usually a squadron (guild), can request that a (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/440462-New-Player-Minor-Faction-System) player minor faction be set up in-game to represent them. It's created as an NPC political group within the background simulation. Its influence can then be spread by player actions, or left to fend for itself. There are heaps of these in systems around Colonia, but also in the bubble (e.g. Hutton Orbital Truckers Co-operative is a massive guild with an NPC player faction that now controls many systems).

Players can also request a Community Goal (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=167455&highlight=create+community+goals). That thread from 2015 says building stations is not supported, but it happens regularly now to host player-related minor factions. It started with memorial requests for stations named after players who had died in real life, and now also seems to be done for big guilds that request it and wait their turn. At the completion of the CG, the station is implemented after the next server maintenance or patch.

A few of those have been in "frontier systems" just outside the bubble, such as in Pallaeni (https://www.edsm.net/en/galactic-mapping#9/161/0/4|historicalLocation|1831) where a now-disbanded pre-Colonia guild called the Colonial Marines still has a player faction and a station. I don't think you can just pick any far-flung system and say "I want a station here" - it has to be a Frontier-supported move, and it has to be deemed something that would not disrupt the game. The new one at the centre of the galaxy was months in the planning because Distant Worlds II is a Frontier-supported community event, forming a storyline (https://tinyurl.com/yah9wgkj).

There's also a series of mostly planetary bases and the odd station, which were set up by Frontier in deep space as the Colonia Connection Highway (https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Colonia_Connection_Highway). This gives players travelling to Colonia the opportunity to get repairs and respawn points along the route, and there are some megaships that "travel" the route. There are other lore-related deep space stations like Base Camp (https://www.edsm.net/en/system/id/3194633/name/Soul+Sector+EL-Y+d7) in the Soul Nebula.

The most far-flung stations are mostly Ocellus Starports (https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Ocellus) that arrive with frame shift drives installed, and gradually change shape as the drive is removed and the station set up (the different forms are actually visible in-game over a few days, though it's irrelevant to most players). There are also asteroid bases (https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Asteroid_Base), dug out of asteroids. Like most Elite: Dangerous community/story content, I think all of the above passes most players by, as most of the process is between prominent players and Frontier's community managers.

I only have time to tag along and see the sights, and I only log on to do this. With a pregnant wife in real life, the countdown is on to me getting left behind and stuck in space :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 05, 2019, 06:33:52 PM
BTW they've announced a "new era" of Elite Dangerous that (disappointingly) won't be ready until late 2020. Forum post here. (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/479122-Important-Community-Update-(01-03)

My theory has always been that this will be called "Elite: Dangerous - Andromeda" and will open up the Andromeda galaxy to players, after Raxxla is discovered in the storyline. The most obvious object drawn in Elite's sky has always been Andromeda. It's generally thought that Andromeda is where the Thargoids come from. The bubble seems to be getting overrun by Thargoids now, so perhaps we'll have to go and defeat them/ally with them in their home galaxy to win the war.

In the shorter term, the announcement also says there will be a shift to "Development Supported Events" which I think means what we used to call "GM Events' in EverQuest.

Quote
As well as Community Goals, we will also be using things like new scenarios, reputation and reward boosts (such as Superpower reputation increases), BGS and global galactic changes, in-game interactions, new game assets and much more to make game-wide events that tie into the game world. The aim is to constantly create new and exciting events and campaigns for you to get involved in and shape, which will focus on and benefit different types of players.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on March 06, 2019, 10:59:01 AM
2020? By then Star Citizen and Squadron 42 might be near-ish...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on March 07, 2019, 11:45:53 AM
So, a couple of evenings wandering aimlessly doing courier and passenger missions and honking for credits in my trusty sidewinder got me to 6 million credits after upgrading everything I could.

Then i spent an evening stripping it back down into an explorer config and full scanned 30 systems on the road to riches and finished the night with 22 Mil.

Last night I travelled a couple hundred light-years to the nearest system with an Asp Explorer on discount, picking up another 2.5 Mil on courier missions and honk data, and bought and fitted it out for core mining. Used EDDB to find pristine icy rings nearby. First system didn't have anything interesting but the second had a ring with a low temp diamond hot spot. Past my bedtime by then but I went on and found a rock with fractures, cracked it and hauled out 14 tons of diamonds which I sold 3 hops away for 10 Mil.

I'll probably do some more core mining tonight then buy Horizons on the weekend and explore the engineering game.

I do have one question though. I had an interesting encounter shortly after i dropped out of supercruise at the hot spot. Three or four ships showed up on my scanner and I got scanned, then some radio chatter with some guy musing "I wonder what you're looking at here?" Then "what are you carrying? Nothing. Hmph" then nothing happened, they just hung around at the edge of my scanner range. So I climbed back up into supercruise and moved to another part of the hot spot and proceeded with my hunt. This is all in private mode, so I presume that was NPC pirates. My question is, had I had valuables in my hold, how am I supposed to get away from them? It took me forever to crawl far enough away from the ring to get out of mass lock and jump into supercruise.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on March 07, 2019, 12:41:01 PM
So, a couple of evenings wandering aimlessly doing courier and passenger missions and honking for credits in my trusty sidewinder got me to 6 million credits after upgrading everything I could.

Then i spent an evening stripping it back down into an explorer config and full scanned 30 systems on the road to riches and finished the night with 22 Mil.

Last night I travelled a couple hundred light-years to the nearest system with an Asp Explorer on discount, picking up another 2.5 Mil on courier missions and honk data, and bought and fitted it out for core mining. Used EDDB to find pristine icy rings nearby. First system didn't have anything interesting but the second had a ring with a low temp diamond hot spot. Past my bedtime by then but I went on and found a rock with fractures, cracked it and hauled out 14 tons of diamonds which I sold 3 hops away for 10 Mil.

I'll probably do some more core mining tonight then buy Horizons on the weekend and explore the engineering game.

I do have one question though. I had an interesting encounter shortly after i dropped out of supercruise at the hot spot. Three or four ships showed up on my scanner and I got scanned, then some radio chatter with some guy musing "I wonder what you're looking at here?" Then "what are you carrying? Nothing. Hmph" then nothing happened, they just hung around at the edge of my scanner range. So I climbed back up into supercruise and moved to another part of the hot spot and proceeded with my hunt. This is all in private mode, so I presume that was NPC pirates. My question is, had I had valuables in my hold, how am I supposed to get away from them? It took me forever to crawl far enough away from the ring to get out of mass lock and jump into supercruise.

Every time I drop out into a ring, the game will give you 2-4 ships that spawn in. Sometimes, you will get a pirate and some security (depending on system). If you are just starting a mining run and only have limpets, then it doesn't matter. Just start about your business, get scanned and they'll jump away eventually. I've never been scanned twice, so once you get scanned, even if the NPC hangs around, you shouldn't get scanned again. I've never had it happen, but can't say that it never will.

If you are just moving to a different hotspot and have stuff in your hold when you drop in, you can either 1. start boosting straight up from the ring and jump back into supercruise, 2. get scanned and proceed to jettison whatever the pirate NPC wants, or 3. if you have the capability, blow that fuckstain out of the system (which I tend to do straight away, but I'm mining in a Corvette. Option 2 is not too terrible since you are only dropping a fraction of your goods for the pirate and just starting a new mining run so you make it up pretty quick. If you are in a high sec system, just put three pips to shields and 1 to engines and keep boosting till security forces show up and melt the pirate.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Big Gulp on March 07, 2019, 03:48:51 PM
If you are just moving to a different hotspot and have stuff in your hold when you drop in, you can either 1. start boosting straight up from the ring and jump back into supercruise, 2. get scanned and proceed to jettison whatever the pirate NPC wants, or 3. if you have the capability, blow that fuckstain out of the system (which I tend to do straight away, but I'm mining in a Corvette. Option 2 is not too terrible since you are only dropping a fraction of your goods for the pirate and just starting a new mining run so you make it up pretty quick. If you are in a high sec system, just put three pips to shields and 1 to engines and keep boosting till security forces show up and melt the pirate.

I fit my Corvette with turreted beam lasers in all my hardpoints set to "fire at will" and sit in Low Res sites with one piece of super valuable cargo in my hold and my NPC pilot flying cover in a fighter.  I then go about my day at work while getting scanned and attacked.  At the end of the day I head back to base and collect my bounties.  =D


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on March 08, 2019, 08:02:40 AM
Well, a Corvette with fighter it's still a bit beyond me, both financially and faction-wise. I practiced boosting out last night, plus understanding now how the only real threat is when you first drop into the ring, so I'm not too worried about it. Maybe after I've gotten a couple billion in the bank I'll kit out a Clipper and mine in style while smoking the pirates for fun.  :grin:

So last night was kind of a waste except for all the useful stuff I learned. First I pretty much maxed out my Asp X components until such time as I can do engineering. Then I found a glorious pristine icy ring in the second system I scanned with several hotspots each (some overlapping) of void opals, low temp diamonds and alexandrite. And then I thrashed around for the next two hours wasting 45 prospecting drones trying to find something other than methane or water or the like. I did get good at identifying rocks with cores, probably 35 of the 45 I probed had fractures. But I forgot the most important step! I didn't scan the prospector probe after it landed, I was just looking at all the surface features it had revealed, being mostly fissures and frozen gasses so I thought the rocks were empty! BIG D'oh!  :ye_gods: So at bedtime and with only 5 limpets left I cracked one anyway and went home with 5 Mil worth of alexandrite.

Biggest takeaways, other than don't forget to take drones and scan the prospector after it lands, were learning how to spot the core rocks in an ice ring. They are medium-smallish, sort of egg-shaped but with biggish squarish lobes separated by deep canyons ( like popcorn, NOT the bigger one with a long split along most of the longer axis), and pulse scanned from a couple km they first show as bright orange with a black grid overlaying it then switch to brilliant lemon yellow with no black at all. And up close you can see the fissures pretty easily with night vision on.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on March 08, 2019, 12:17:29 PM
Protip: do not use a Cutter for mining. Way too pretty and not great for maneuvering around broken rocks and you will never fill all that cargo space unless you are mining for weeks.

IMHO, the Krait and the Python are the best to mine with. They have very few negatives, esp with core mining being so lucrative. That said, I love mining in the Vette... something about the absurd overkill with that ship and my massive twin efficient beams. Just those two beams literally melt anything smaller than a python in one pass. So satisfying.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on March 09, 2019, 07:23:52 AM
NPCs drop in to scan you whenever you drop into a ring or belt.  This includes if you disconnect and reconnect to the game (inside the belt).  If they find nothing, you get a message where they're disappointed, like you've seen.  If they do see any ore in your hold, though, they will attack.  So make sure you have enough shields / armor to survive, and make sure you've enabled the option to "Notify police of crimes against me" in the right panel in your cockpit so they come to your aid.

Protip for mining:  you CAN put a low yield mine in a high yield fissure if low yield is all you need to get into the blue range and crack the roid.  The effect of not matching yields to fissures is maybe 1-2 less chunks.

Otherwise, enjoy, and do use the game-related websites; coriolis.io for ship fittings, eddb to find trade routes or specific stations, inara as a general encyclopedia of where stuff is, canonn research for lore.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on March 11, 2019, 08:10:03 PM
Okies, I is now a billionaire. Did I win the game?  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 12, 2019, 03:56:31 AM
You're richer than me. Now build a ship for the thing(s) you want to do, and do the thing(s). I've dedicated myself to exploration, but I'd go fight Thargoid Scouts if I was in the Bubble.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on March 12, 2019, 04:11:49 AM
You're richer than me. Now build a ship for the thing(s) you want to do, and do the thing(s). I've dedicated myself to exploration, but I'd go fight Thargoid Scouts if I was in the Bubble.

You people need to leave those poor fuckers alone.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on March 21, 2019, 01:26:18 PM
the things I want to do. That would be almost everything (except pvp) of course.  :why_so_serious:

There's so many things I want to do I don't know where to start so I'm mostly gathering mats for, and working on, engineering. I'm having so much fun I think it might be illegal. I made Elite in trading and Allied with the Federation the same time I rolled over my first billion from selling void opals. I've never fired a shot from my ship, I don't even *have* weapons currently, but I think my combat rank is creeping up, I guess from shooting drones from my moon buggy? Still harmless though.

I've taken lots of pictures, some of them pretty good even.

I hate Frontier's paint job DLC scheme. I'd pay a buck for one color for one ship type in a heartbeat, probably each time I bought a ship. But I doubt I will ever buy a package of 6 colors for one ship, most of which I don't like, for 4 bucks a pop. They're leaving money on the table with that stupid approach.

I'm still in my second ship, the good ole AspX "I'll Be Back", with over a billion credits sitting in the bank, though it's been souped up a bit. It makes a really great runabout as long as you run from every fight. My starting Sidewinder "Help Me Obi-Wan Kenobi" is still parked in a garage somewhere. Not sure if I should learn combat in it, get a real but still cheap combat ship like a Vulture, or just go wild and kit out a Fer-de-Lance for my first combat mission. Or maybe I'll get a Python and build it for laser mining to do the stuff needed for engineering unlocks. Or buy a second AspX and take it out into the black. Or an Anaconda so I can do all the things without swapping modules. Or use a Python or something for missioning up my Fed rank to get a Corvette. Or ...

Toying with the idea of buying a second account so I can send one off into the black indefinitely while still being able to tool around the core, follow the lore, advance ranks and engineers, etc with the other. But it looks to be a pita to run two accounts on a single machine. And I'm not sure I want to grind engineers twice.

Thinking about that though I did figure out about the cheapest ship possible to do core mining if I do bootstrap up a second account. Don't want to play dodgerock without Shields so I came up with a Cobra mk3 which would do the trick for under 900k credits. One run with that should net you 15 Mil, enough to get a stripped down aspX. Then one run with that and you've got 100 Mil to play with and off you go.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on March 26, 2019, 07:56:40 AM
So I've headed out into the black.

I've got the first two engineers levelled up so I bought a new ship, a Krait Phantom named "Tears In Rain", and fitted it out for exploration with 6A fuel scoop, extended range/mass manager FSD, and thrusters tuned for cool running. I didn't feel like waiting while I ground out the guardian Frame Shift Booster or any more engineering, so it's not an optimal min/max build but it has 45 ly jumps and can finish scooping almost as fast as it takes to honk, usually well before I've managed to skim around the star to get lined up for the next jump, all with temperature rarely exceeding 65%. With one more slot than the AspX and no FSD booster it has everything but the kitchen sink including shields, two-car garage, xeno scanner (just in case!), repair module, a small cargo bay and both fuel and repair limpet controllers.

I loaded up on courier missions to Colonia and headed out about 45 degrees left and up from a straight line towards Colonia, aiming at an interesting looking nebulae I'd never heard of 5k ly out. The first evening of play I made 1800ly, spending lots of time scanning systems, exploring, photographing, mapping, and generally getting a feel for how to optimize what to scan, etc. But at the end of the day I realized I was still 21k ly from Colonia and only had 6 days to get there.

So, day two, new plan. I turned straight toward Colonia and picked up my pace, not stopping to detail scan anything but systems with K stars and only mapping earthlikes, water worlds, and terraformables. Otherwise just drop in, scoop/honk/align then wait a second or two for temp to drop back down to 50% and jump again. I think I made 4k ly, with several distractions and most of an hour spent wondering if there were any rest stops on this road, trying to figure out how to find the nearest to my current east-of-nowhere-location-not-recorded-in-EDDB , then waypointing in my galactic map every station outside the bubble or Colonia areas.

One of those distractions did result in my first fender-bender in the new ship, when something the Countess was watching on TV distracted me and I turned back from it to my monitor just in time to watch a planet fill my screen and stop my ship a little too suddenly. So, I can now add a perfect litho-braking maneuver to my list of accomplishments!  :why_so_serious: I got away with only 2% hull damage (surprisingly less than the damage I get on about one in five of my planetary landing attempts so far, I haven't quite got the feel for how to line up optimal descent angle to come out of orbital flight in glide range of the target yet) so not even worth figuring out how these repair limpet thingies work yet.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on March 26, 2019, 10:31:30 AM
I have been thinking about what's holding me back from jumping in on this, and I think it's the learning cliff. So much things have changed that I don't even know what the fuck to ask about what's changed. The whole thought about relearning everything and going though all my controls for "uh is this important? What the fuck is this and what key should I put on it?" is giving me hives.

I'd rather hang back and live it vicariously through you lot.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on March 26, 2019, 11:20:31 AM
well, I still don't know what half the buttons do. "What's this button do?" is on my alt list for ship names, if i ever run dry on movie quotes that fit in 22 characters.  Pretty much every play session I learn 4 or 5 things. 2 or 3 of which I'd learned but forgotten already.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on March 26, 2019, 12:10:47 PM
This game is one of those that you slowly add to your button arsenal over time. Learn the main stuff, controls, menus, weapons. Then play for a few hours/days and commit those buttons to memory. Once you get to a point of not even thinking about what button you are pressing to activate whatever, then add 1-3 new buttons and start using those... continue as needed. That's what I did when I got my HOTAS.

Even then, you really can do everything off the menus, just takes longer than hotkeying it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 26, 2019, 08:50:38 PM
So I've headed out into the black.

Welcome. And hello from Lyaisae HA-A e3363 (https://www.edsm.net/en/system/id/10621286/name/Lyaisae+HA-A+e3363). Hope you enjoy this part of the game like I do.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on March 27, 2019, 11:21:26 AM
So I've headed out into the black.

Welcome. And hello from Lyaisae HA-A e3363 (https://www.edsm.net/en/system/id/10621286/name/Lyaisae+HA-A+e3363). Hope you enjoy this part of the game like I do.

So far, it's great! Though I'm now aware I'm only really in the medium grey so far, what with all the stations littering the well-worn path between the bubble and Colonia. :grin: That plus my choice of giving myself a deadline by taking on 20 Colonia courier missions has reduced my ability to focus on exploring and enjoying the experience. I had planned to take a more scenic and lesiurely path back after puttering around the Colonia area a bit, but who knows. Maybe I'll just spin the dial and head off thataway wherever it points.

Last night's session I learned how to neutron boost, and made 7k ly to dock at the Saceqawea base for the night.  I also learned how to do field repairs, at least the AFMU part, not the repair drones yet. I've read they repair hull, do they also repair that hidden internal Structural Integrity value that "Repair All" somehow misses?

Halfway to Colonia and with 4 days to go still, I've gone from behind to ahead of schedule!  I turned in a bunch of exploration data at Saceqawea and got my first "First!"s, plus Ranger rank in Exploring and Allied with the Colonia faction.  So far I've been really pleased with the choice of about 1.5 less ly jump range in exchange for cooler temp handling. I'm less sure about the massive  thrusters that give me over 500 boost speed. I've since read they don't help with landing on high G planets at all. Oh well, will they at least help with covering that last 50-100km Gap I all too often have when the glide phase ends?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on March 27, 2019, 07:46:32 PM
Yes, but that's not the fastest way to shorten that.  Glide mode cuts off based on altitude, so if you aim your ship above the destination (like, 2x the diameter of the target reticule), and then aim down at the last second, your glide should end at 7 km from the target.

Also, closer to the center, I think after Sacagawea, stars get really dense.  If you have the map configured to fly OBAFGKM (only the fuel stars), you can switch to OBAFG - the bigger stars, and have more of a chance to find water worlds or earth-likes orbiting.  Quick check of the FSS scanner to see if there are any signals in the water world region on the dial, and a quick scan / probe, should give you some 20-50 million per each leg between the highway pit stops.

Structurall Integrity isn't repaired by AFMU's; the damage is accumulated by traveling long distances within a star system in supercruise, and getting your ship down to 1% Structural Integrity just gives it 30% lowered resistances to weapon damage, and that's all it does.  So be careful when you arrive in Colonia and/or at each pit stop; even if you fly in Solo mode, there are NPC pirates who like to interdict, and if they shoot you take a bit more damage than normal.

Anyway, for the return trip, here's a list of sights to see, shamelessly copied from the Distant Worlds II expedition.  The official Frontier forums are down so I can't link to the official Distant Worlds II post, where they have the maps.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on March 28, 2019, 11:01:39 AM
Thanks, I saw a couple of screenshots of some spectacular stuff from that list, and it's on my To Do list. I haven't decided yet whether to do that first or head out looking for my own.  :grin:

I spent last night refining my skills with neutron boosts. I detoured slightly (700ly) down to the neutron star field to hop onto the neutron superhighway and woohoo! Well, that and*crunch*.  :uhrr: Apparently not all neutron stars are created the same, particularly the length of the Jets varies by huge amounts. But there is no sense of scale or easy way to tell where the crunch horizon is or how close you can aim to the base of the jet with the intent of getting a full charge in one dive without having to loop around for a second pass and more importantly without going *crunch*.

So, here's the procedure I developed which gave me 30 consecutive woohoo's with no *crunch*s: Once jumped into hyper towards a neutron star (or white dwarf) set throttle to 0. Then upon dropping out make sure you are stopped and in a safe place, then target the star so you can keep track of your range from it. Honk, look around, maybe FSS or wipe the sweat off your palms or whatever. Then when you are ready to move on aim for somewhere in the jet near where it changes from straight lines into curves and spirals and throttle up just a smidge. You gotta be moving at more than zero throttle in supercruise for this next bit to work but you don't want to slam into the star while you're figuring it out. Now look in the top right corner of your HUD at the info panel. The far right side of the header bar has a space where "IMPACT" may or may not be displayed. If it is, TURN! away from the core of the star until it goes away. Note that you never want to get closer than about .25ls from the star or you'll go *crunch*, and I start sweating at .5ls, but I actually found a couple stars last night where the jets weren't much longer than that so I really had to shave it close and actually work my way around the curve of the exclusion zone to enter the jet with enough length left to fully charge in one pass.  Now you can safely throttle up a little to approach the jet without worrying about going *crunch*.  Be patient, I never approach the jet at over 25% throttle and cut it back to back to about 10 or 15% when it looks like the jet is about to swirl over me. The shorter the jet, the slower and closer to the star you need to enter it to get fully charged in a single pass. And feather your angle out as you get close so you enter the jet moving slowly and aimed out at the center of the circle it's drawing on the stars beyond. Then just hang on for the woohoo, set max throttle when your FSD gets fully charged, hit the "Target Next System" or whatever it's called, align, and jump.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on March 28, 2019, 11:57:27 AM
Oh, and I have to say something I've never said before, or even heard said before about any game, ever. The pathfinding in this game is pretty good! Once I'd planted myself in the neutron star field I opened my galactic map and had it plot a course to Colonia with the neutron boost option enabled. And it did! All 12000+ light years. And it included all the necessary fuel stops. Neutron star to neutron star to neutron star to neutron star to fuel star then back to neutron stars again, etc. I'm impressed.

To balance that, I'm pretty annoyed that FDev can't seem to understand the need to see what star type I'm heading towards at 500000c for longer than the three seconds it shows on the info panel message (and vanishing from that even before the jump countdown is complete!). As long as I have a star targeted, whether it's in my current system or my next jump target, whether I'm supercruising or in jump space or parked in a goddamn station, that info needs to be in the target info box on the main HUD, not squirreled away four clicks away on a completely different panel. And not vanish just because I'm jumping either, stupid computer shouldn't forget where the hell it's jumping to! When exploring, star type is more important than the name even!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 01, 2019, 10:13:09 AM
Made it to Colonia with 2 days to spare on my missions. Spent a few hours running around the various systems turning them in, selling cartographic data till I was ally with the locals, seeing the sights, then moving on to the next. Got to Pioneer rank in Explorer.

Got an invite from an engineer and checked him out, but he wanted bounties to unlock and meh. I know it would be trivial, but I don't even have a weapon on my ship, have still never fired a shot from a ship, and didn't feel like messing with it all at the time so left him for later.

Then I kind of got bored there. Already ally with most everybody that owns a station. Mining would be a waste of time given the prices you get would be half what you can get in the bubble. Didn't feel like scraping together a C-rated ship to start learning combat in. Not interested in power play right now. No imperial or alliance faction to gain. So after less than 5 hours in "civilised" space I was already feeling the call of the great beyond again.

So I was wondering how far "up" can you go? Can you get high enough above the galactic ecliptic to make out the spiral arms and such? The answer is, not really. At least not above Colonia.  But I'm definitely in the black now! Like half my sky is black with only a couple distant galaxies visible. The other half is the beautiful yellow glow of the Milky Way. Lots of interesting nebulae visible from here, maybe need to check one out.

I discovered my first black hole! And then several more when I started looking for them. Kind of cool but kind of disappointing as well.  It's really too bad the game engine doesn't model gravity. Yeah, mass affects your engines/speed but it doesn't seem to actually pull your ship. And bumping into the black hole exclusion zone at low speed was a non-event. Basically no different from ramming a planet with an atmosphere. Dropped out of supercruise, no damage due to the low speed. And that's it. Sad really.

I'm still very pleased with my cool-running Phantom. After several neutron-boosted jumps i can just park it right next to anything but the hottest of stars and slurp up fuel at 859 whatevers per second and my heat sits at 65%. I tossed in a second heat sink launcher in Colonia, and traded some materials to fill up on heat sink replacement materials. But I've only fired off one since, and that was by accident. :why_so_serious:. I plan to swap out the 6A thrusters for 4A, which should get me to 49.8ly range with my current engineering, next time I'm in the bubble. And maybe do what it takes to get the guardian booster. Getting the booster means I'll have to lose the fuel limpet controller, but while I'd love to help someone out, I'm really just playing solo, ya know, so the odds aren't very good I'll never actually be able to use them.   :why_so_serious: I've thought about heading out to catch the DW2 swarm, but I don't think I want to commit to just doing that till July, and the thought of someone else getting back and claiming all my meaningless firsts annoys me for some reason.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 02, 2019, 02:52:43 PM
Here's the view from the top of the worldgalaxy (sort of):
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/lfd77pxfx1b634e/ED%20On%20the%20Edge.png?raw=1)

And just playin:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/4oi0a6ph8heui1y/ED%20Into%20the%20Black.png?raw=1)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 02, 2019, 04:20:26 PM
Been wanting to reply to you but had no time. You should look at the Distant Worlds 2 waypoint thread (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/distant-worlds-2-a-journey-of-discovery.452358/#post7106451) (both current and archived). It's like doing the journey without actually doing the journey.

Every POI in the thread links to an EDSM description with pictures to enjoy. One of the most recent was (Goliath's Rest, or Swoals IL-Y e0 (https://www.edsm.net/en/galactic-mapping#6/2303/0/32394|stellarRemnant|1234)), which features a giant star 2850 ly above the galactic plane, the highest I've been. Above me it was pitch black. Can only jump there using a FSD boost (craftable in synthesis).

If you haven't already, you should register on EDSM and upload the log files from since you began until now. Gives you a public map of where you've flown: here's mine (https://www.edsm.net/en/user/travel-map/id/24281/cmdr/sjmv), showing trips to Colonia, Formidine Rift, and the current expedition (although it's still missing the data from another machine I used to play on).

Re your thrusters: I've never outfitted a Krait, but the approach with an Asp is to use D-rated thrusters for minimum mass and engineer them up. I like to retain the ability to boost, but only just (for each ship, there's a minimum mj required on your power distributor in order to boost -- used to be a good reference list on the Frontier forums but their revamp seems to have eaten it). Thrusters have no effect in supercruise, which is handled by the FSD (don't try repairing your FSD while in supercruise! Or do, if you have plenty of hull and want to see what happens...). I also run with just a 2A power generator, because it's engineered up, and you can switch off things that aren't in use (vehicle hangar, AFMU, etc) until you need them, plus you can set power priorities. Quick and dirty tip for engineering when you next have access to it: reduce the mass of your sensors, because they're insanely heavy for some reason. Even if you only have access/materials for class 1 or class 3 engineering for lightweight sensors, it adds a few ly. Here is my ship and its engineering (https://coriolis.io/import?data=H4sIAAAAAAAAA6VYXXOjNhT9Lzx7NEKIr7y1zXab6W43jTvtQ2fHo4AwmmCJkcRm3Uz%2B%2B16wEwMC7DR5SALCR5d7zz33yE8e%2F8al9a68T4rlqrHeyluXooYbzNRw8VnlTcWNd%2FXvk3dj%2BQ4WytpudkIKua2Y4XpTiO8835gdq6r205Vq4brLkum8VkLaABa%2BSO%2BqYJXhK%2B9WC6WF3XtX9Hk1wC05s0bIh4o1MisB3DZac7uxQu5P4O3VK7Z%2FxLa6WYTOSlYUJ9x5QDoXLO4hQnY2TO9UozdbzXLun8AOt2ei8nsYsNemVo9c1xWDf434j5NNBkk14Qnt9MAc4sr7ILdCcq6hJN7Vk%2Fdz1fAaLuzNNSyTJIqDOEpWp%2Ft%2FsB0fQG%2FulTKW57DFJyBEBdlbeX82rHrZAWggCsH1gQif2H37jHcjLd92Uay8vxmgw%2BcoitP2B4LVAsJi1XEljFpwY27MR6XyYzZfkG7bUH5hNcsGaD5BEDnGvoOWoiW434BGH4pCZILLrIeHEQ2IgwV3h1j%2B81dI6vcaMrqD7mAVYPGso3XNM8GqftkypSrI3POosLyrSVfU8FBUcirqjsFa94CZqSq%2BpKpRFLpVPW5sG9mvp9%2BrJ35DPWOKgoCkaeBkLY7P1fNas8ceM1Ac%2BBTHDhBFYTrOfw%2FqkIYvtRUgKZ8hjyfIiEDpMKW%2By7YowAvhvWLecl0ovWMy4z3W4RQlcTLBYR%2BfR225d8dsHw%2BRKCYTb%2B6jwCHemEflHmiYa%2FFtwKWeQBQa6m5KUdjuqfeoRJRSl0%2BFyTeVkqBycstPhAovEYhhuUjkZIDghcpP0DENUEIxxtTN5RjqHB8xitwC47GsDAL6dX09yUM%2FSgmQOE1j9w19HDqBnVOXNuUwCb%2FtHVWpRMFNU9dKH%2BYFdaSl98SctEyNoFwYq8V9Y5XugAMHePzYe4QrpmRmHPXjqI%2BgJ6U8ci%2B4hHv%2FcFYraSaGSohiQuOp9k4WKHTEu%2BNgJPS2194E%2BX5CE5fbyD8rFlPhJSjxJ3hEz4O5sYHChO7AW4prvQcjsJuKiyAS4GAqbUuhHfHc0DBKaTTRx29tFoc2BTPWaRzDpVHazMxjcHBsjtDkLKFjiqPYdwl92BN6dlvaR97%2Bnqbw7DweqkyASJoE1KVG8jYNpSkicUp8dx4tjvR19zZ%2FtUW064zJn8D%2F97vALaU7gp3pVjS8skw%2B9OsS9GbbcflSMw2GjFtW11qxrDSN6Kbwi34dFvV%2BvH4JchuIAadXd4FGzhA28Af7h8ULZXfbwIFDMAlif3DfB%2BEdg5LXu5eAgg%2FgVb7lkms2L%2BUdcHBYfI9fSEg8wfpRCKqdmML0zej%2FIL%2BPQpqAgXRV9m3kJzE4xhRPAAVL4j%2FhH3yEU%2BpPqSuiznmi30ddfj5yOW0lQnjT1uBMTIDW7c%2B35wvs2moYmLbsmSbsHp%2BWzNIdh%2BoNLSyIdUTCCQe7APM7sMeK7I4bEOehw6YY4ag1xW4VUtQdH53TnSMdmtdMaD7gOB1xnA44vnigbyEzEDelWfbQx%2FRHmOFy34wg75vtdn%2FP9v3T%2FbgTo8PiXJTBCDIHFRNw5DSNLljGDWixdL7R6IDjAfDbnRoMto7gM4OtHbTt7tOnzFljNuXFXSO%2B0EHX6%2FXmltmsvGO5aPoHDJdP7qlgQKRd%2B%2FUW013hoUq56nztMYfd3bLdaL40X59%2FAEqcAwdDEwAA).

Re fueling limpets - do you know about the Fuel Rats (https://fuelrats.com/)? A major player group who can help if you do run out of fuel, and always need more members. It doesn't actually matter if you play Solo most of the time, as you can switch into Open to refuel someone, or to be refuelled. I prefer to play in Private Group mode, in Mobius PvE (Asia-Pacific one for me) which is a massive organised private group where you won't be attacked by gankers, but you will see other real people from time to time (especially in major places or during community goals). It's the same game and the same savegame no matter which mode you play in, so I prefer to be in Mobius rather than completely alone.

I've got just a normal fuel tank on DW2, but I did my first Colonia trip with a half-sized fuel tank to add ly to my jump range, and set the star map to only use KGBFOAM star types which are the scoopable ones. That worked well. A quarter-sized fuel tank can even be manageable if you're going to scoop on every jump. Back then you could only plot 1000 ly at a time, so it was a laborious journey. Apparently there was a time when it was only 100 ly. Agree the new pathfinding in the star map is superb. And I agree Colonia is quickly boring, and like you I was out of there within a few hours after becoming ally to all the important factions.

As for planetary landings, I point down at about 45 degrees to my target on the planet's surface, keeping the nose above where the HUD shows danger (somewhere below 45 degrees). Entry speed shouldn't be too fast, so that you will hit glide, and then you glide down keeping the same trajectory and always finish under 7 km from your target. It becomes instinct after a while, so I might not be describing it perfectly. I have taken to avoiding high-gravity planets however, since smacking my Asp's belly on the ground and limping home from an expedition with 17% hull (before repair limpets, and I don't even carry those anyway). It's 0.1g to 0.5g for me :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 02, 2019, 05:46:06 PM
I've got E:D Market Connector running and post the updates each time I dock after being out and about, but I haven't actually checked to see my travel logs which sounds pretty cool. I've gotten kind of confused with all the interconnected 3rd party stuff. I'll have to put some time into actually reading and stuff soonish.

My highest system so far was at +2772, so not quite as high, but it's above Colonia. I imagine closer to the core should be able to get a good deal higher above the central bulge. I sadly wont get first discovery on it, but I should on mapping the terraformable worlds in it.  I've been leary of jumping farther out than I can get back from, to the point I haven't been using neutron boost at all while going up.  I'd forgotten about the FSD synthesis boost, I've seen it but never used it.  Will have to tick the box in the route selector and see if any new options show up. I actually haven't seen anything I needed more range for, other than speed. No gaps I couldn't cross, though I've heard the inter-arm gaps get pretty sparse in places as did the top fringe.

Switching the thrusters from A to D is a great tip. I keep trying to do too many things with one ship, and was trying for >500 m/s boost for in the bubble evasion. Which is silly and useless out in deep space.  And I already did the class 3 lightweight mod on the sensors. Makes a huge difference!

I was about to ask about Mobius and if it was still active and any good or if there were other more active PVE groups. Would be cool to see someone else sometimes. I'm playing in private group with my stepson but we've only gotten together once so far.  Space is a big place!




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on April 02, 2019, 07:03:02 PM
Guilds (https://inara.cz/squadrons/).  Mobius is still active AFAIK.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 02, 2019, 07:11:19 PM
I have no 3rd party stuff running. I think you can automate EDSM, but I just upload the journal files that the game automatically writes to your hard drive... C:\Users\YourName\Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\

Just drag and drop all the journal items at once (it accepts multiple files): https://www.edsm.net/en/settings/import/journal

When I first did it, I had two years of journal entries and it took a full day to process, but it worked!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 04, 2019, 01:03:46 AM
Screenshots from recent DW2 travels.


(https://i.imgur.com/EF586Qt.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/gssNdGR.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/1y1zZ9z.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/cYFjylq.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/XMxuG7R.jpg)


The Great Annihilator looks like it wants to annihilate me.

(https://i.imgur.com/a0gIJ4u.jpg)


Sagittarius A* out the side of the cockpit.

(https://i.imgur.com/0rQqZ8M.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/Gm51Pac.jpg)

2850 ly above the galactic plane at Goliath's Rest.

(https://i.imgur.com/0tSbxdP.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/8WGJxVu.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 05, 2019, 06:05:31 PM
Just been playing around the last couple nights exploring everything in this system above the galaxy.  3 stars including a neutron, 35 objects, 18 landable, several of them with geological features.

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/2tiq931wdj1yyiz/Rings%20above%20the%20galaxy.jpg?raw=1)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 07, 2019, 09:18:49 PM
laws (Roche limit) being broken I suspect:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/c49k7kc6h10bc49/a%20distant%20world.png?raw=1)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 11, 2019, 09:16:48 PM
I'm thinking I might head back to the bubble for a bit. Maybe grind some more engineering. Get Guardian FSD booster. Do some more core mining. Get a Python and try laser mining. Or combat. Or both. Finish ranking up Imperial and get a Cutter or something outrageous.

But there's so many cool things to investigate between here and there!

Up close and personal with a small black hole (<3 solar masses):

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/5n259xe56jfeif7/Black%20Hole%201.jpg?raw=1)
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/2phksnhgtjv6b0s/Black%20Hole%202.jpg?raw=1)

I drove right up to this one at 25% speed, taking pics in free camera mode, till it kicked me out of supercruise with a panicked "WARNING!!! TEMPERATURE LEVELS CRITICAL!!!!111one!!"
Heat was at 51%.  :oh_i_see:  Got all the way up to 72% I think when I ramped back up to supercruise from the exclusion zone boundary when I was done playin'.  I *really* like the cool ship build.

System also had a terraformable water world orbiting the black hole. No other stars. Makes you wonder what living there would be like, other than all the X-rays and stuff coming off the BH.  Maybe an undersea colony would be protected from the radiation by the ocean?  Well, radiation would be a lesser worry once it spiralled in to the accretion disk. Which ED doesn't have.  :sad:

I'm wondering if there will be any paint left on my ship when I get back. Polished stainless steel would be nice, works for Space-X!  Besides, paint adds mass, I should be getting a bit more range these days!   :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 12, 2019, 02:22:45 AM
Incoming patch with new graphics for black holes, I guess.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on April 13, 2019, 01:14:20 PM
Maybe, someday.

The next patch is just an improved newbie experience, giving them advanced docking computers (not just regular docking computers) so they don't have to figure out how to fly around for a while.  And every ship gets an extra internal slot.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 13, 2019, 01:50:32 PM
Hey, they're doing that thing I suggested since day one ! 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 15, 2019, 05:05:09 AM
Maybe, someday.
The next patch is just an improved newbie experience, giving them advanced docking computers (not just regular docking computers) so they don't have to figure out how to fly around for a while.  And every ship gets an extra internal slot.

Cool. So I'll finally be able to use docking computers on all of my ships (or more likely fit more scanners). Once you have it down manually docking becomes such a hassle.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 17, 2019, 08:47:51 PM
Gradually (very!) working my way back towards the bubble. I keep finding interesting stuff to check out, like this - Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire!  2 K class stars orbiting less than their radius apart with an attendant landable planet quite close:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/y2i9v1frzqfegza/Great%20Balls%20of%20Fire.jpg?raw=1)

and here a pair of twins  (Swartzenegger/DeVito style  :why_so_serious:)  I'm actually closer to the little Herbig proto star in this pic, with the blue O looming over us.  And it's not even a giant!
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/hf2gfcdhcjfz1wp/Twins.jpg?raw=1)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 21, 2019, 09:14:49 PM
Still on my way back to the bubble. Made it over halfway there when I got distracted (squirrel!) by a nebula which I spend a couple days exploring.  Found alien life! Bark Mounds. Then more Bark Mounds. Then dozens more worlds with, you guessed it, Bark Mounds.  And nothing else.  I did discover one cool thing about Bark Mounds though, one of the nodule thingies you can harvest off them glows prettily/eerily in the night!

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/d79yba9nwvu1yqw/Alien%20Halloween.jpg?raw=1)

Apologies if this is turning into a personal travelogue, but I'm having a blast with the internet imaginary astrophotography, so here's some more cool shots.

Drama:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/rbuxzj5cdypa5wp/Dramatic%20enough.jpg?raw=1)

No, THIS is drama!
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/ltmabe6zcjd5xuk/No%2C%20this%20is%20drama.jpg?raw=1)

That's no moon
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/q965et9p5nlb9f1/That%27s%20no%20moon.jpg?raw=1)

The Phantom strikes!
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/rgvaorc7o07yecc/The%20Phantom%20strikes.jpg?raw=1)

Paint is overrated.
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/qi5erwzrlgr6vf8/Paint%20is%20overrated.jpg?raw=1)

Bullseye!
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/3vi0pl9bvdc7j6n/Bullseye.jpg?raw=1)

bonus, that one is landable. You can see the rings from the surface AND looking between those rings you can see the ringed gas giant it's orbiting.
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/t4e9jdj2ma8ofkk/Ring%20around%20the%20rosie.jpg?raw=1)






Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 23, 2019, 08:29:02 PM
Hey man. I'm really enjoying your pics, but would you mind shrinking them down a little? You do it by do it by {img width=800}your picture url here{/url}. Replace the {} with []. its just it's no fun scrolling your pics to the side all the time.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: rattran on April 24, 2019, 05:51:09 AM
I do like this game, but every time I go to fire it up, there's another 5gb patch. Every damn time.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 24, 2019, 10:19:04 AM
Loving the changes.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 24, 2019, 10:50:25 AM
Hey man. I'm really enjoying your pics, but would you mind shrinking them down a little? You do it by do it by {img width=800}your picture url here{/url}. Replace the {} with []. its just it's no fun scrolling your pics to the side all the time.

Thanks, done, and sorry. I've futzed with trying to adjust the width of pics on this board several times but could never get the syntax right till you spelled it out for me.

Meanwhile I'm still bolting for the bubble, in a leisurely sort of way. I seem to have run out of neutron stars and also finding more systems already explored which I find less interesting. So I'm making shorter jumps but stopping to explore less often.

I'm actually looking forward to getting the new cruise control module. No more dropping in to a system and seeing a bunch of interesting stuff way over around star D 600,000ls away and having to choose between 5-10 minutes of boredom or skipping it. With cruise control I should be able to just aim it and then go take a bio or grab a snack or something and not worry about missing completely or crashing. I hope. Not sure what use that would be in the bubble or Open though, as you'd still be subject to interdiction.

Not sure how big it was but yesterday's patch took about 12 minutes to download, and I think it's the first patch since I started. It took me almost as long to recover from the Discovery Scanner no longer working after the patch. It showed as still configured on my firegroup but didn't show in the HUD and didn't work when I pressed the button until I completely reprogrammed that firegroup. Fortunately I didn't lose any of my keybindings. Which reminds me I need to save that again as I'd hate to lose a month's worth of fine tuning that!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 29, 2019, 09:17:17 AM
Arrived in the bubble Friday evening, successfully docking at a station in Procyon without smashing to smithereens. My powerplant and AMFU were down to 80%, internal structure was 30%, and paint is at 0%.  :why_so_serious:

Sold my exploration data there and a dozen other systems, unlocking permits to Sirius and some other engineering star, getting ally with the primary minor faction in each station, getting ally with all three superpowers, getting elite rank in Exploration, and netting just over half a billion in credits. My highest paying system was for 15 million.

I felt like a backpacker who's been out roughing it in the wilderness for a couple of weeks then got dumped into the drivers seat in the middle of Atlanta traffic at lunch hour. So many ships zooming about, speed limits (being ignored), people shooting each other, assholes trying to interdict me, having to thread the needle to land on an assigned postage stamp instead of anywhere I want on a planet (although honestly that could often be as frustrating as trying to find a parking space in San Francisco).

I'd forgotten just how beautiful the sky is in the vicinity of Sol. No nebulae but lots of stars of all different colors and brightness. Very much felt like home after weeks of having half or more of the sky totally or nearly black, and the other half a wash or stripe of yellow glow (or blue or purple or green after the recent stupid global tinting patch turned it into No Man's Sky cartoon BS).

I spent the weekend puttering around doing bubble things. I swapped back to my AspX to do some void opal mining and fell in love with it again. Such a wonderful cockpit view, and noticeably more nimble than the Krait, I can't imagine what the comparison to an Anaconda must be like! I may very well take it out on my next trip into the black if I can fit everything I wantneed now with the new slot. And I definitely need Shields, fuel scoop, AFMU, DSS, repair limpets and SRV, and want guardian jump boost and supercruise assist.

I did some courier missions for both empire and Federation, unlocked Sol, bought and sold goods at dozens of stations (working towards an engineering unlock), and collected enough Modular Terminals to unlock Quent which is my first task tonight.

I was thinking it would be pretty cool to land on Earth's Moon on July 30 in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. But FDev has it blocked.  :x  :cry:

My current plans (in pencil LOL) are to get Quent engineering ranked up, then buy a DBX and do the guardian booster unlock and maybe some smuggling with it. Then maybe a Python for laser mining and unlocking Selene Jean and/or a Vulture for combat missions. I'll certainly do more void opal cracking, I enjoy that a lot. I'm just two VO runs (one evening or less, even with my easily distracted ADD play style) shy of having my second billion in the bank as is so I can pretty much buy anything I want except the faction locked ships which I'm making decent progress towards.

Supercruise assist is a very mixed bag. It runs at 75% throttle so is slower, and does nothing to avoid obstacles along the way like gravity wells or occluding planets or even stars, instead just smacking you right into the exclusion zone at speed. My car's cruise control is smarter than that! That's kind of OK, it's on me to line up my course appropriately. But the worst and unforgivable design stupidity is its behavior on cruising to stations. Target a star, planet, planetary base, signal source or apparently anything but a station and it will drop out of supercruise and safely stop and/or go into orbit upon arrival. Perfect. But target a station and it suddenly goes brain-dead stupid, dropping out of supercruise upon arrival but leaving the throttle at 75% so you WILL slam right into the station it so perfectly targeted you at unless you are there to intervene. I cannot describe the depth of my scorn and contempt for whoever at FDev thought this was a reasonable design or was somehow justified by any gameplay, balance or other consideration. Absolutely asinine.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 29, 2019, 09:36:40 PM
Yesterday I forgot to mention I had an adventure.  I got trigger happy on the accept button while collecting courier missions and ended up with a couple to places over 500k ls from the drop points. I wasn't interested in supercruising (manual, no assist module) 15 minutes for each while getting interdicted every 5 minutes or so by the magical pirates sent after me for having 15 + active courier missions. So I abandoned them.  And ended up with magical bounty hunters following me everywhere I went right up to the entrance of each station!  Took me a little while to remember I needed to find the right lawyer (Interstellar Factor or some such, not the local dude) to pay off my bounties, but that took care of them.  It's good to be rich.

Got Qwent unlocked and levelled up.

Some pics from the bubble:

pretty stations
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/6bt5pf63jfpybfk/Ra%28LeConte%20Dock%29_00001.jpg?raw=1)
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/zh2jtv2bxzo0yfj/Tchernobog%28Vancouver%20Ring%29_00001.jpg?raw=1)

pretty rocks
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/02unk5vy8rmuhj2/Wolf%201481%28%201%20A%20Ring%29_00010.jpg?raw=1)

pretty payout for an hour of fun
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/1l4i33t9d6o0ktr/LHS%20397%28Zillig%20Depot%29_00002.jpg?raw=1)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on April 30, 2019, 09:35:44 AM
Fuck me, I guess Void Opals are still hugely fucking broken then.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 30, 2019, 01:47:41 PM
Oh no, void opals are old hat. passe. Last week's fad. The new hotness is laser mining Painite or Low Temperature Diamonds at overlapping hot spots for 200-400 million per hour.  :why_so_serious:

 I've just been too tired to kit out a new ship and learn another new set of controls and systems the past couple of days. Still relearning everything I forgot during my month out in the black. I may get me a shiny new Python and try it tonight though, depending on how tired I am after work then garden then dinner.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 30, 2019, 10:20:34 PM
So, I bought a shiny new Python I've named "Failure to Communicate" and outfitted it as a laser miner. Tooled around a bit to get a feel for it. Didn't crash into the mail slot. 30 ly range and 2A fuel scoop, heh, but I've found there's a sweet spot inside scoop range but out of crispy range where i can park and scoop while I FSS the system (assuming I'm not carrying valuables or a mission that would trigger an interdiction). I'm finding a lot of HGE (High Grade Emissions) with G5 engineering mats since the latest patch, so I just scan everything in every system I pass through unless I'm in a big hurry. Sometimes I'll find 3 or 4 HGE's in a single system now. And sometimes they'll all be 15k ls away in different directions so, pass.

Anywho. Shakedown cruise took me I think 8 hops to a ring with overlapping painite hot spots.  2 hours of this:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/kexfaszf8zryt01/Hyades%20Sector%20DB-X%20d1-112%28%202%20A%20Ring%29_00002.jpg?raw=1)

including futzing with firegroups and learning how to laser mine, this was my first time ever doing laser mining, then 5 hops to a station with high prices yielded this:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/e71sle00qcdq3vb/Tihtipihin%28Thuot%20Hub%29_00001.jpg?raw=1)

which more than paid for the new ship.  And now I see why the current best ship for this is a Type 9, because I still couldn't throw out enough collector limpets to keep up with two medium lasers.  But at least I could continuous fire those two lasers and burn down a whole rock in one go. Then wait and take pictures and get a snack or whatever while the limpets pick up all the pieces.  But to add more/bigger limpet controllers I'd lose cargo space which means less stuff being hauled each trip.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on May 02, 2019, 03:45:25 AM
Is the limpet AI still trash? Last few times I mined ore those things had a tendency to crash into asteroids while collecting ore or into my ship while depositing it or they tried to throw themselves into my mining lasers.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on May 02, 2019, 09:50:32 AM
I've only been playing 2 months, so I don't know if they've changed or not. But they are definitely stupid. The general rule seems to be "limpets are dumb so you have to be smart". Avoid rapidly spinning whirling limpet swatters of doom. Maneuver so you can target your mining lasers at the rock's "pole" to avoid the irregular outcrops swinging around and swatting them. Aim for a single point so all the chunks go of in the same direction, preferably below your ships belly and away from nearby rocks. Don't roll, pitch or move rapidly while limpets are approaching your ship, otherwise you're no better than a spinning rock! Never let a rock get between you and your limpets.  As much as possible keep your belly pointed straight over the chunks they are picking up so they fly straight in instead of doing the stupid zoom up to eye level way in front of you then down again to get underneath you (why do they do that anyway? Half of my limpet Kamikaze deaths are when they swoop up right after picking up the chunks. And why are they so determined to get up to roof level on my ship for the approach when they need to enter at floor level?). Etc. I do have a bad habit of running over my prospector limpets while searching for cores in my AspX. That's only happened once so far in the Python, when I boosted into it.  :why_so_serious:

I have only seen a limpet apparently fly through my laser beam once, but it didn't affect it. So either it actually missed or has no affect, I don't know.

I've only done laser mining twice so far, but following the hints above I lost far fewer limpets than I do when core mining, where I'm often in the middle of the exploded chunks, some spinning, all irregular shaped, and usually other rocks in close proximity as well.

I don't think I like laser mining as much as core mining, but I'll give it some more tries. I made 140 million in 2:10 hours last night, a bit better than my hourly return core mining. But it was tedious and seemed much slower.  I may try the triple LTD hotspot next to see if that's more fun. Although the Python isn't quite as optimal as the Type 9 for this, at least I don't feel helpless against NPC pirates.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on May 02, 2019, 12:39:14 PM
Chiming in on the limpet AI thing... I haven't played in a few weeks, but I used to mine prior to the huge changes to mining and the AI was fuckstupid, as in full on faceplanting into the rock/iceberg. AI after the mining update, they seemed better, but they still get hung up if you have a rock that is spinning at a decent rate or if you have a lot of frags after cracking the core. They do seem to traverse around rocks way better than before, but you'll still get times when they decide the best route to take is through something.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on May 05, 2019, 06:15:47 PM
They "improved" the limpet AI so that it paths just like before (stupidly), but when it gets close to an obstruction, it tries to follow the surface around that obstruction.  So now they get stuck trying to travel around the big pieces of asteroid.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on May 07, 2019, 06:57:46 AM
There are specific design choices, "features", in the limpet AI that cause almost all of the stupidity. The first is that for some reason it routes its return trip to a point in space directly in front of the ship, then recalculates the final path into the cargo hatch once it's gotten to that intermediate waypoint. This is just plain a bad/wrong design choice. It should be plotting a course to a point under the ship, where the hatch is.

The second is that, for whatever reason, the intern they assigned to code it implemented the route-finding algorithm in a 3D grid. I guess they must have failed high school geometry and couldn't handle angles, degrees, etc. This is pretty lame in a game simulating anything more complicated than Minecraft, BUT it does at least give us a little window for mitigating the worst of the side effects. This grid is not based on anything inherent in the space simulation or anything, no, it's based on your ship! Rotate your ship, and all new route calculations are made along a grid based on that new alignment.

Finally, we know that, for chunks out in front of us, the first leg of the limpets return route will always be to try to move to a spot level with our ship along this silly grid.

 So to avoid the swoop of death into the asteroid directly above where the chunks are, you know, right in front of our ship where our mining lasers are firing, we can both aim the ship to kick the chunks off the rock at an angle, and ROTATE the ship such that the grid the AI is using lines that first up or down swoop parallel to the rock instead of splattering into it. Lots of work to adapt to lazy coding which I'm starting to suspect was inherited from that first version of Elite written in Basic.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on May 07, 2019, 08:08:10 AM
I tried a bit more laser mining in the Python and was finding it tedious so I swapped back to my Asp and started puttering around the bubble doing ranking missions and looking for a good system to base out of. Currently Jameson Memorial is home, or at least it's my garage. Handy for Federation stuff but less so for Empire and downright inconvenient for Alliance. I decided to try some new stuff and picked up a Planetary Scan Job and a Mine Praseodymium mission, both +++++ Rep.

Getting a bounty on me, losing Rep and being wanted by the Federation for doing the scan job did not align well with my long-term goals so I don't know that I'll be doing much more planetary scans. At least not unless there's some way I haven't figured out yet to tell who I'm going to piss off BEFORE accepting the mission. But my friendly lawyer got me out of that one easily enough.

So, faced with more laser mining and having over 2 billion in the bank now I bit the bullet and dropped a quarter billion on A-rating a Type 9 Heavy I've named "Greed Is Good" and fitted it out for mining with 512 cargo, 3 medium lasers, controls for 9(!) Collector limpets, prospector limpets, DSS, and big honking Shields and fuel scoop. LOLOLOL what a beast. It's like going from a Spitfire to a B-17. But without the giant trail (thank goodness!) So maybe more like a YB-35. LOL. It's got a jump range of 20ly, and a cruising speed just over 100 though it boosts to double that. It rolls and turns like a 747 and can stop on a dime as long and that dime is about 5 minutes away from you.  :why_so_serious:  If I put 4 pips to Shields and 2 to engines for negotiating the mail slot I can blast through at full throttle without exceeding the speed limit! LOL

I took it out for a shakedown cruise and went to a good Painite site. I had a blast. It took me about three hours for the whole round trip.  That included jumping out 5 hops (scooping instead of having to dock to refuel) mining till the hold was full (dumping 150 of the 400 limpets I started with LOL), jumping 5 hops to the nearest high price sell system (dodging at least one attempted interdiction solely because I scoop and jump so fast he couldn't get a line on me in time), selling 460 Painite then jumping another 4 hops to turn in the Praseodymium (fighting off another interdiction attempt that I missed escaping completely by less than a second). And made over 350 million, more than paying for itself in just one run.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on May 07, 2019, 09:05:48 AM
Now that it has been mentioned, I did notice an increase in limpets getting stuck on the rocks and then timing out which is basically a crash, but without the ability to send out another one till the dumb one dies off.

Likewise, I noticed that sometimes a chunk of material would pop off the rock, but the asteroid would 'absorb' it so the material would be inside of the rock. Not sure why there were no collision physics put on all the materials or more likely something caused the collision physics to glitch out. No matter... I'd still take this type of mining over the old school surface shooty thing any day.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on May 07, 2019, 10:06:00 AM
Yeah, they supposedly tried to fix the chunk-inside-the-asteroid problem with the last patch by shrinking/smoothing the bounding box and making them pop out more vertically from the surface. I didn't see any chunks get stuck inside last night, but I did still get a couple stuck against the body of the rock that killed limpets until they drifted away a bit. Though with 9 limpets running the only way I'm likely to notice is when it suddenly tells me it's programming a new one. :grin:

I've configured my firegroup to have all mining lasers AND all collector controllers on one button, and the prospector controller on the other. Works very well, I never changed firegroup the whole time I was in the ring, and never once worried about if I needed to launch another limpet as they Auto launched if needed every time I fired the mining lasers.

Another trick to minimizing limpet stupidity is to keep them on a tight rein. I use all D-rated collector controllers so they can't wander very far, I think it's only 0.75km. That keeps your limpets close with very little room for a rock to get between you and then. Any chunks that drift out of that range can just wait till you've finished mining the rock and collecting the stuff near it, than you can move towards them and the collectors will dash off to get them as soon as they are in range.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on May 09, 2019, 09:16:31 PM
Nearing 3 billion now. Puttering around with this and that, trying out different mission types for faction.  Still haven't gotten the guardian FSD booster or most of the engineers yet, though I've done a lot of the prep work for the engineers and have tons of mats.

Lots of sights to see in the bubble and vicinity, the cool stuff isn't limited to the great beyond. Which is a good thing because they broke the FSS in several different ways with the last patch and I can barely stand to use it now. Would really suck if I was still out exploring systems!  I'm good for maybe one or two systems a night now before I get stabby and start imagining dropping black holes on whatever idiot thinks zoom out on a telescope/scanner should go anywhere but RIGHT WHERE IT BLOODY WELL WAS. Idiot.  I am pretty sure whoever did that doesn't use a mouse to play, and it either wasn't tested with a mouse or any feedback from mouse users was ignored/overruled.  QA and testing in general do not seem to be this lots strong suit.

This moon has an interesting view of it's deep blue parent. And it seems to be outgassing a little bit of wispy atmosphere as well, maybe caused by the sunlight? Kind of hard to check and tell if it's misty at night! LOL 

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/uhf42nwffwft6ob/HIP%2019136%28%20ABC%201%20d%29_00003.jpg?raw=1)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on May 10, 2019, 10:48:42 PM
Well.
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/8pawr3saoh1wqco/Hyades%20Sector%20LC-U%20b3-4%28%29_00003.jpg?raw=1)

That was interesting.  I got pulled over by the Thargoid cops! LOL  Yanked me out of witchspace while warping between two systems, shut down everything, and scanned me, then turned the ship back on and warped away.

Other news for the night is I got Professor Palin unlocked and pinned Dirty Drives blueprint.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on May 15, 2019, 05:26:15 PM
It looks like yesterday's patch fixed the worst of the FSS bugs they introduced with the last patch to fix the previous patch. The jury is still out on what they broke in this patch to fix what the patch to fix the patch broke!   :awesome_for_real:

I'm still having a blast with two very different kinds of mining, laser mining Painite or Low Temperature Diamonds and cracking Void Opal cores.  You can make decent money at either just by going out and doing it with a minimum of thought and preparation, though finding cores takes more skill and patience than finding rocks with painite in them. Lots and lots of money with a bit of practice and knowledge.  https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteMiners/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteMiners/) is an active and valuable resource for doing the grunt work of sifting through all the ED mining facts, myths and outdated info.

I've over 3 billion in the bank now so I'm thinking of buying a Beluga and outfitting it for mining. LOL I renamed my Type 9 to "A Bigger Boat", then swapped it for the Python "Failure To Communicate" which I refitted for both laser and core mining with 3 Medium Mining lasers and controllers for 10 limpets plus 128 tons cargo. So I may reuse the name "Greed is Good" for the Beluga. I still haven't fired a single shot from a ship. I'm eligible to get Federal Assault Ships now, but I'm just not interested in combat for now.

So here's a couple mining pics:

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/3jo40szrqtojmcy/Phraces%28%203%20A%20Ring%29_00013.jpg?raw=1)

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/c17bgvf1934rat3/Delkar%28%207%20A%20Ring%29_00003.jpg?raw=1)

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/dabl5mv8hxegdz3/Vasude%28%20A%202%20a%29_00001.jpg?raw=1)

I'm also still puttering around ranking up in both the Imperial and Federation Navies and working on engineers. I tried a couple +++++ rank mining missions which were kinda OK but not as efficient as, say, doing data missions on the Maiani - Ngalinn route which got me two Imperial ranks in a couple hours.

I still haven't done the Guardian stuff at all. 

I've spent a lot of time cataloguing planetary rings for potential mining spots, which gratifies my OCD side and annoys my ADHD side.   :why_so_serious:



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: rattran on May 15, 2019, 07:07:43 PM
I jumped back in for the first time in ages, I managed to remember how to take off and land, and that was about it. Such a complicated game, need to have a laptop open next to me with a cheat sheet.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on May 16, 2019, 11:05:05 AM
Yes, I'm running two monitors and always have several windows open in the second with various reference materials or tools for ED, usually including a keyboard map although I'm needing that one less and less.

Remembering how to land is a pretty good first step! From there you can at least start doing non-combat stuff.

I gained two more Imperial ranks last night doing the Mainani - Ngalinn run (plus buying some indulgences/bribing officials/donating a few millions to Noble causes), making me a Baron and allowing me to buy the Corvette Clipper (doh!), so I may be getting that instead of a Beluga next.

I also did a little 9 hop trip to a new mining spot I wanted to check out, scanning, mapping some rings, and searching for HGEs as I went. I ended up having to make a little detour to a Material Trader, twice (!), as I found (and traded) over 100 Imperial Shields (grade 5 manufactured material for engineering) just on that trip.

When I arrived at my target destination it was already pretty late so I decided to postpone mining and just map all the rings there. But I encountered the same old DSS bugs which slowed me down a lot and I didn't even finish that before I went to bed.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on May 25, 2019, 12:45:09 PM
Still playing this every night, having a blast puttering around. Mining a lot (over 4 billion cash now, plus several A-rated ships of all sizes), prospecting some, material gathering some, running missions for rank some, and unlocking engineering some. I've still not started the guardian stuff though! LOL

I got tired of mining with my Type-9 dredging barge, though the refitted Python has been a lot of fun for both laser and core mining. The barge is too slow, too hard to maneuver, has too short a jump range, crummy brakes, horrible convergence pattern on the lasers, and is way too stressful taking twice as many jumps to get anywhere as my Python while trying to avoid interdictions to get a hold full of valuable ore to market.  Nice view though.

So i finally bought a Beluga last night and fitted it out for mining. Yes, I went and bought a brand new state-of-the art luxury liner (top 1% you know!), gutted it, and replaced the carpeted walls and luxury suites with bulk ore holds and a mining refinery and took it out to break rocks.  :grin:

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/cpr8fzj4oy03jo1/Borann%28%20A%202%20B%20Ring%29_00001.jpg?raw=1)

It's almost as much fun as the Python, and holds twice as much.  I spent last night running around the bubble to the varous engineers I've unlocked, and leaving some paint on the mail slot of every station I've been to I think.  That's why I don't fly without shields!  Well, that and the 25% hull damage I took on top of the shields when I boosted into an asteroid this morning on it's shakedown cruise.  And an otherwise very successful cruise it was, to the triple overlapping Low Temperature Diamond hotspot. Two hours pad-to-pad and I harvested 250 tons which sold for 303 Million, more than covering the 200 million or so it cost me to buy and outfit it after discounts.

Unlike the Python, this one can't really be well-equipped for both laser and core mining, so it's a dedicated laser miner.  I'm thinking of getting an Imperial Clipper for core mining, as I can't figure out anything else to do with one and I worked so hard to get the rank for it! LOL


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 26, 2019, 06:09:09 AM
Great pic!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 13, 2019, 07:53:49 AM
I have just completed the Distant Worlds 2 expedition. Made it to Beagle Point. Now all I have to do is get home.

(https://i.imgur.com/01hvriF.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 13, 2019, 09:01:02 PM
So, yeah, I've been playing. Didn't do the "Road to Riches", ran missions until I could fit out an Asp Explorer (yes, I know the DBX is better ranged, but the AspX maneuvers much better in cruise, that lets me make up in time between jumps what I lose in jump range, and it can carry a 6A scoop so that fuel stops are short). Ran out to Cupid's Arrow, shooting every O or A system in the series. No engineering yet, so that took a while (25ly range, 2500ly away). Came back with about 120M worth of data, which I spent on a Fer De Lance. Didn't like the Ferdie, maneuvers like a beached whale and doesn't have enough cargo space for fetch-it missions or mining. I traded it in on a Python so i could do some mining for engineering mats. Really like the Python as a GP boat, mined myself enough mats for decent engineering. Found an...anomaly in the pricing for Painite in one system (selling for nearly 1M per unit, galactic average is 80K)) and milked that for a quick 200M before the system caught up and dropped the price.

Bought a hot rod with the profits: Mamba, fitted out for pure combat. Burst Turrets with Scramble Spectrum and Long Range Weapon, a 4F gimballed multicannon with LRW and Auto Loader, shield tanked with a chaff launcher and point defense. If i can't outshoot it, I can run away from it, and most of the things that can potentially crack my tank can't keep a bead on me with their heavy guns while I spin around them. Found out that if you accidentally shoot a pirate victim while trying to kill the pirate, things quickly spin out of control. Oh well, never liked the Alliance anyway.

Figured out that the corridors on the way to points of interest (labelled nebula, galactic center, outer rim) are heavily explored, took my now partially engineered (35ly range) AspX 3000ly in the least interesting direction I could find. Sure enough, everything is completely unexplored. Set a routing filter to exclude the trash systems (anything smaller than K), just puttered around for a weekend seeing the things nobody has ever seen. Turns out, most of them aren't that interesting.

Most of them. Found a system with literally *every* rare/very rare Raw material, about half of them in crystal gardens, the others in Geological POI. Turns out that "Crystal garden on hillsides" is 'hard mode' for SRV's. Two *long* trips because I had to blow my SRV's after they got irrecoverably stuck, wedged into a crystal. On the third trip, I realized that if I swapped the 6A scoop for a 6G SRV hangar, I will have 3 spares. Takes 20 minutes to fill the tanks from a 3A soda straw, but that's better than these stupid runs to get a new car.

So, of course, I never get stuck again, even when I'm playing mountain goat trying to pick a Selenium crystal off the top of a 70+ degree slope. But my AspX is now a 50ly ship, even with the ginourmous garage bolted onto it, so whatever.

On my third (and probably last for a while) trip to the bonanza system, after converting most of the first two runs to lesser metals, I'm running out of room for Raws. Hoping if I don't turn in the survey data on it, it won't go in the database and I can keep it to myself.

--Dave (don't ask, the answer is 'no')


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 13, 2019, 09:24:58 PM
I like reading your adventures. You're in your own story, kicking the goals you set up, having fun. Which is what Elite: Dangerous is for.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 15, 2019, 05:09:58 AM
DW2 numbers after cut-off day for the decal.

FLEET ROSTER: 13,605
REACHED BEAGLE POINT: 3,640​

It's a long way. There are still people en route. Most abandoned it.

Here's the view looking back at the Milky Way from Beagle Point. It's 40,000 ly to the nearest starport (the new one near Sag A), or 46,000 ly to Colonia. And then the trip back to the Bubble.

There are a few systems even further out than Beagle Point, reachable now with FSD injections. I went two hops beyond Beagle, then doubled back because reaching the furthest requires a number of jumps without refueling, and I don't want to cut it that fine out here (even though there are probably Fuel Rats around).

(https://i.imgur.com/NXbZQzG.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on June 19, 2019, 04:15:31 PM
Congratulations on making it out there Tale, that is really cool!

And Mahrin, I mine a lot and never sell Painite for less than 750K (Inara is my friend), but I've also never seen it for over about 820k, so near 1m is incredible. Nice find!

Meanwhile, speaking of mining, I've bought another ship and converted it into mining.  :why_so_serious: 

It seems that the magic NPC pirates who come after me EVERY time I drop into a ring and often when I'm trying to haul ore to market scale based on my being Elite in Trade, in spite of still being Harmless in Combat.  I'm encountering wings of Deadly pirates, or they're in Anacondas or Type-10's or the like.  I haven't lost a full load to any yet, though I did lose my ship when a second(!) wing(!) of magic pirates dropped in on me right as I was mining my first rock one trip.  Pissed me off, so now I've got a moderately engineered Type-10 miner with massive shields and hull.  I won the interdiction game on my one mining trip so far, so still remains to be seen if the ship can make up for the clueless pilot enough to get me out alive if I ever do get interdicted.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 20, 2019, 09:49:21 PM
Just got lucky on the Painite (it was 915K, as I recall), I've now discovered the buggy goodness of the Triple Low Temp Diamonds Hotspot (buggy because it's clear that everyone is depleting only the center LTD hotspot, even though they get the benefit of all three, meaning what should be a mined out dead zone is still an effectively unlimited double LTD). Planning on making a billion or so before they figure it out and fix it.

Noticed today that I shot through the California Nebula without even stopping to wave. This was significant to me because once the California Nebula seemed way too far away, now it was a blink-and-you-miss-it tourist trap on my way back from a trip 5000+ LY into nowhere to unlock an engineer I don't even really need (Clean Drives 5 would be nice, but not game-changing). And that was a 'day trip', as in that is how I spent my leisure time today.

Noticed a weird formation of A-class stars, what was weird was that not only were they arranged in a rough line (not as neat as Cupid's Arrow, but similar), but the axis of the line pointed straight at the bubble (which is also true of Cupid's Arrow). Not sure if it is coincidence, a bug in the procedural generation (you can't see any of these from Sol, they're 4000+ LY away and behind a nebula, so these are strictly fictional stars), or maybe a clue to something. Going to have to strike out in different directions and see if there are any more like them. Nice thing about 'clues' made of OAB stars is that they stand out 1000 LY away.

--Dave

EDIT: The Ring NPC pirates only spawn when you first approach the ring. If you wait until they turn their nose up at your limpets, or run away before they can scan you, you should never see another (unless you crash/log out).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on June 21, 2019, 07:59:44 PM
OK, here's some info I've learned about the galactic simulator with regards to mining.

Planetary rings (and asteroid belts) are part of the stellar forge world generator output. They are completely static.  A rock with, say 60% Painite, will always spawn in that exact same spot every time anyone moves into that area. Same with cores.  Laser mining is not shared between players, each player gets his own version of the rock to mine with the exact same contents whether they are winged together in the same private group staring at the same rock at that same moment, or in completely different instances with one in Open today and another in Solo next week.  And laser mine-able contents respawn after 2 hours. So if you can get back to the exact same spot 2 hours later you can mine that exact same rock with 60% Painite again. There is NO depletion of rings over time.

Cores are a little different. They are shared across instances, so if you crack one, everyone else will see it as cracked and be unable to crack it for themselves. Cores regenerate after 6 days though. If you are flying around in a ring and see a small dust cloud (not the general overall dusty cloudiness) that is a core that someone else cracked within the past 6 days.  So cores can be temporarily depleted, but not permanently.

What this means is that it is possible (and some have done it and even published the results on the EliteMiners subreddit) to prospect out and map a set of high grade rocks using a hotspot marker as the fixed starting point, which they (or anybody else) can go back to over and over again every two hours (each).  They call it map running and I think they are reliably getting up to 250MCr/hr doing it in the overlapping Painite spots.  Some also do that with VoidOpal cores, though nobody shares maps of cores since someone else running them would deplete the cores for them also for 6 days.

Belt clusters (as opposed to planetary rings) are also static. Cluster #7 around star XYZ will always have the exact same 6 or 12 rocks with the exact same contents. If it's a 12-rock cluster, exactly one of them will have a core, again always exactly the same every time, but if it's been cracked by anyone within the past 6 days it will be a dust cloud and chunks instead of a rock with a core.


Regarding weird star formations, there are several artificial sources of unrealisitc star formations in ED. One is a really weird consequence of using real-world data and the resolution of Earth-based telescopes. This results in grids of stars in certain dense formations which correspond to the pixel resolution of the mapping telescope.  Another is the Stellar Forge algorithm's "voxels" (I forget what they call them).  Essentially an artifact of "pixelization" again, the galaxy is mapped out by the stellar forge in voxels with parameters defining the mass/density of each of these voxel regions.  At places where there are high density stellar clusters adjacent to much lower density regions like between the arms, the result is very obvious cubes of stars with straight line borders. You can get next to one and have half the sky filled with a super dense array of stars and a perfectly straight line separating that from the adjacent low density region with just a few scattered stars. It's really ugly and they are pretty much stuck with it as any change to smooth or blur those lines now would not only wreak havok with the Stellar Forge calculations for literally everything in the galaxy, but it would wipe out all the exploration and mapping that has been done by the players to date.  Another possible source is there is some kind of bug in the client skybox graphics generation that results in stars of certain classes not showing in high density areas after a few jumps, varying based on your graphics card and memory. Once that bug hits, the sky will be vastly less dense until you relog, at which point all of a sudden you will see gazillions of stars from the exact same spot where before you only saw a relative few.

Globular Cluster, minecraft style!
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/v8ql1m4870gszl9/Globular%20Cluster%20Minecraft%20style.png?raw=1)

I know about, and rely on the static spawning habits of the NPC pirates in rings.  I've made close to 8 billion credits mining in unarmed ships while dealing with them roughly 4 out of 5 times I drop into a ring. I'm also seeing more and tougher pirates almost every time now than I used to a month ago. Wings of 3 or 4 usually, Deadly or better combat rating and much nastier ships like Anacondas and Type-10s and FDLs instead of Asps and Cobras and Eagles. I'm not sure if this is due to my being double-Elite (though that's been true for a couple months now), or if FDev are tweaking things in the back-end to make it harder on miners to balance how easy it is to get insanely rich by mining.

That time I died to NPC pirates I either encountered an exception that breaks some rules I thought I understood, or I had a VERY unusual roll on the original spawn.  Shortly after I first dropped in on the ring I saw three groups of ships spawn around me.  That in itself is unusual but not unheard of, usually it's one or two groups of 1-4 ships each.  Two of the groups were miners, the third was pirates. I boosted over to the pirates and let them scan my hold full of limpets, then left them complaining about how their children would go hungry that night. While I was boosting away from them, they started attacking one of the mining groups, and then got attacked themselves by security forces.  I boosted quite a ways away even after all contacts had vanished from radar, then settled down into the ring and started prospecting. Found a good rock and was just finishing it up when a wing of pirates showed up and scanned me. I'm 90% sure this was a different wing with different ship and pirate names, but I'm old and maybe I misremembered everything from 5 minutes before. It does happen. This wing caught me with my pants down, cargo bay open, focused on herding the limpets with the remaining chunks of ore while avoiding getting crushed by the 2 spinning rocks in close proximity to the one I was mining, etc.  And a few tons of irresistable pirate-bait Painite in my hold. About two seconds after I realized they were there, they were shooting at me, and continued to do so even after they got attacked by more security forces, and I died before I could get away because I couldn't boost at first and then I had taken too much damage from the lot of them mass firing on me.  

Now, one of three things happened. Either they spawned many (5+) minutes after I dropped into the ring and all the other groups spawned, or it actually was the same group I first saw which I misremembered AND which survived the other miners and the security forces that counterattacked them AND managed to track me down afterwards AND for some reason decided to scan me again even though they already had earlier, or it was another group which spawned at the same time as all the others (making a total of at least 4 separate groups spawning from that one ring entry) but out of my admittedly D-rated sensor range and they avoided getting involved in the other pirate/security kerfluffle while still managing to track me down quite a ways away from where I dropped in. Regardless, somehow I got attacked by NPC pirates several minutes after dropping into the ring and after I had boosted well beyond the point where I had nothing on radar.


Oh, and sadly, Nebulae are not only magnets for every explorer in the history of ED, long-since fully mapped and with little tourist trap pit stop stations set up and all, they also are about the only places to have a decent chance of finding roughly 90% of the cool and unusual stuff that you can't find in the bubble (mostly biological POI's like the crystals at lagrange points and those weird stump things on airless bodies with vulcanism).  It would be nice if there was more new exotic stuff for us latecomers to find and it was in places other than nebulae, but they seem to be more interested in creating new paint jobs than in developing that much explorer content, or if it is out there it's so rare it's literally a one-in-a-million chance to find it.  Admittedly it's a pretty tall order to develop enough content that every snowflake explorer would have a decent chance of finding something new in a game that's got hundreds of thousands of players over many years. But it sure would be cool!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 21, 2019, 08:51:04 PM
One of my thoughts was that the "behind a nebula" was the key, the mixture of observational and procedural data was "packing" these high brightness stars into the blind spots behind nebula. I didn't look behind the Coal Sack when I went looking for the Moties, but it's not that far so I will probably take a look next time I decide to break out of the bubble.

Right now I'm grinding LTD's for a billion to build a pimped Anaconda for going to Colonia. Need to take a few random Neutron Star rides first. I have this vague feeling I should check out Guardian stuff first...but why? Other than the FSD boosters, is any of it worth it, since it doesn't work on Thargoids (which seem to be the Live content focus)?

Making new paint schemes makes money in a very traceable way, although fixing their abortion of a store site would be a better boost to revenue. Having seen how mobile handles "product management", the number of pants on head retarded decisions by PC devs on that front is just staggering, and having a website that actively tries to keep you from giving them money....

Really, should not even be a web site, should be client integrated. But if you just have to use a web site (because Steam IAP support is ass), at least make one that doesn't require stupid tricks before it is willing to take my money.

--Dave


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on June 22, 2019, 08:05:28 AM
I'm not giving them another dime until they fix some of the blatant bugs that I run into every time I play. Like the disappearing hotspots in brightly lit rings, or the constantly changing FSS bugs (at least the FSS is a good deal better now, only mildly annoying every once in awhile instead of nearly unusable).  It is blatantly obvious that all the A-team developers that have a clue how their 10-year old spaghetti code works have moved on to other projects while ED maintenance and whatever joke of a QA team they have has been relegated to interns and new hires.  They aren't a small startup struggling to make payroll, they're quite well off. No excuse except greed.

I still haven't done Guardian tech yet myself. The Ram Tah mission line is supposed to be fairly interesting content that I'll probably do just for fun if I get bored. And supposedly you can do just enough to get the Frame Shift Boosters in a couple of hours, so I'll definitely do that before my next trip out into the black. I'm starting to feel the call again, but I'm still having fun exploiting figuring out the mining mechanics. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 22, 2019, 05:35:20 PM
So it turns out that the Anaconda actually sucks as an exploration ship. Needs so much fuel per jump that by the time you're carrying enough to be useful, the legs aren't much better than the AspX, and ships that have just enough fuel for one really long jump aren't useful (the 90LY build downgrades the tank, but even the stock version is only good for 4).  Add a 6C fuel tank for 10-12 jump endurance, and range drops below 60. Maneuvers in cruise like a barge (weird, because it's really lively in normal space when you're not using understrength thrusters to save mass), which means maneuvering around stars for jumps takes forever and threading through a system for scans would be painfully awkward.

There are tweaks I can make on my AspX that will chip away most of the gap, and the faster time between jumps will make up for the rest, so I guess I will stick with that as my distance ship. Might try an Orca out, but I suspect it will maneuver like the Beluga, and that's just not good enough when you're making 100+ jumps in a row, instead of 4 to go to market with a load of shiny rocks.

If the placement of the Huge hardpoint was better, I could replace the Mamba as my main combat ship. I might try fixed weapons for it and the Large right next to that, it's got enough maneuverability it might work, but the DPS gains over the gimballed multi cannon are questionable when compared to the higher usable engagement envelope.

Of course with a 7A shield and room for 4-5 shield boosters, it would have one hell of a tank. But if I'm going that way, I'd probably be happier making rank for a Corvette.

Speaking of rank, I made Elite for trade grinding the LTD's, and I'll make it for exploration as soon as I finish doling out the data from that last deep run (at 91% now).

--Dave


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on June 22, 2019, 07:08:51 PM
grats on Elite! 

And you sell your data 10MCr at a time in systems you want to gain faction with the controlling faction to get Ally in several places. Also it counts towards Superpower faction (but not rank) so choose wisely.

I loved my Krait Phantom for deep explorer, it's like a roomier AspX.  But with the new slots I think I can refit my AspX without any compromises this time and I'll probably take it out.  Cockpit view is incredible is unbeatable in the Asp, and given that the scenery is what it's all about it's hard to sacrifice that.  Just don't forget the moon buggy :)



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on June 23, 2019, 10:11:16 AM
Another advantage the AspX and DBX have over the bigger ships when exploring is the smaller the ship the easier it is to find a parking space.  I was suprised at how hard it was to find a landing spot sometimes even in the Phantom, I can't imagine what a pain it would be in a big ship.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 23, 2019, 11:42:52 AM
I don't land very often, and with already having the secret stash, I have even less incentive now. I'm trying out the Orca, it has some tradeoffs, but in balance it's very similar to the AspX:

1) Very similar slots for internals, the Orca has a 4 in optionals where the AspX has a 2, which means I can carry a spare SRV without having to choose between endurance, fuel scooping, and the spare truck.

2) Doesn't pitch in Cruise as well as the AspX (far better than the Anaconda), but has much faster yaw. Star avoidance is slightly slower, but threading planets for scans is easier.

3) Faster in normal space by quite a margin (390 vs. 305). Again, not quite as maneuverable, but not painfully so.

4) Slightly shorter jumps (about 49 vs. 52 LY once all the engineering is done).

5) Runs much cooler, which increases the margin for error on star avoidance.

I think I'll keep them both, when the point of the trip is getting from Point A to Point B as fast as possible use the AspX, when I plan on doing a lot of scanning take the Orca. I built both with the margin for running the Guardian FSD Booster baked in, so when I have that, I just drop a fuel tank for the extra 10 LY.  Distance between tank fills will work out to about 20% less, but distance over time will go up about 20%.

--Dave

Edit; Minor "quality of life" factor: The Orca engine doesn't sound like a dryer full of pots and pans, and overall it flies smoother than the AspX.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on June 23, 2019, 07:01:58 PM
Heh, I just spent today tooling around in my AspX (starting the Guardian stuff among other things) after a week in my Type-10 and I was slewing around all over the place oversteering like crazy.  And marvelling at having brakes, poor though they may be.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 24, 2019, 03:17:01 AM
I did my trip to the core and back with a Diamondback Explorer. Had a great jump range, did handle the heat well and was quickly topped off again for the next jump. If you can manage without automated field repeair units it's in my opinion the best explorer. Fast, nimble, long jump range. I called mine grasshopper.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 24, 2019, 04:03:10 PM
I did Colonia and back in a very pretty Diamondback Explorer, for the jump range (back then it was just under 50 ly). On returning to the bubble, I immediately swapped it for my Asp Explorer.

Two reasons: the cockpit view in a DBX is obstructed by two chunky bars that block too much space, and the maximum fuel scoop is slower than the Asp's. The fuel scooping rate makes a massive difference when you have hundreds of jump scoop honk systems to pass through.

Having now crossed the galaxy in the Asp (at 68 ly thanks to today's engineers and guardian tech) I'm still happier in it. The alternatives I'd consider are the Krait (a bigger Asp, as noted) and the Anaconda. You have to really engineer the shit out of a Conda to make it passable as a replacement for those nimble ships, but its jump range and capacity is unchallenged. Mine is back in the bubble though, rigged for mining and a bit of combat. The Asp always feels like home.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 24, 2019, 04:54:53 PM
The AspX is definitely the best for me when it comes to putting down tracks, I can maintain a 2 jump per minute pace almost indefinitely. But it runs hot, so you can't get the full potential out of the big scoop. With Guardian FSB, I should be able to get 64ly (with the SRV bay and some other QoL compromises).

The DBX doesn't have the endurance of the AspX, is not much more maneuverable in cruise than the Orca (less if you consider yaw rates), and along with the soda straw scoop means it loses more progress to those than it gains from the range, and it doesn't have the space for either AFMS or an SRV without serious compromises elsewhere.

The Orca can run the same scoop as the AspX, but is so much cooler you can dive straight to the bottom, walk away, and not worry about coming back to heat damage. It loses a little on pacing because it needs about 3-5 more seconds to get perpendicular to the star, but it can make it up with faster fuel stops. I should be able to get it to 61ly with guardian booster and the double garage. It has a decent view (not as good as the AspX, but nothing does).

The Anaconda is just a non-starter as far as I am concerned, in the time it takes to steer past the star, I'd already be on the countdown in any of the others. It would not actually be much faster on long trips because of it, and it would be a continuous aggravation to feel like I was steering through syrup. The *only* thing it would be good for is reaching systems that are just not possible without the range.

--Dave

Edit: Got my double Elite, going to be a long time for Combat, if ever. Going to do some Guardian stuff, get the booster, then look towards Colonia or the deep black.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 24, 2019, 05:57:40 PM
You absolutely can get the full potential out of the 6A scoop with engineering and power management. I can circle suns almost endlessly in my Aspx. Never use my heat sink, never have to pull out of scooping before I'm full. Linked my build a few pages back (posting from mobile and can't go looking for link.)

The steering on the Anaconda also is fixed with engineering.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 24, 2019, 07:31:36 PM
You absolutely can get the full potential out of the 6A scoop with engineering and power management. I can circle suns almost endlessly in my Aspx. Never use my heat sink, never have to pull out of scooping before I'm full. Linked my build a few pages back (posting from mobile and can't go looking for link.)

The steering on the Anaconda also is fixed with engineering.
You can't fix supercruise maneuverability, it's baked in. Dirty Drives makes my Mamba dance like a prima ballerina in combat, but she's a fat pig on ice in cruise.  And I can go deep with the AspX, but I can't walk away, take a bio break, go for a soda, figure out why the kids are fighting, mediate a peace treaty, make the youngest a sandwich, realize I don't even know how long I have been AFK, and expect anything other than an insurance screen when I get back. With the Orca, I can.

"Quality of Life" compromises, man.

--Dave


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 24, 2019, 08:17:43 PM
*hits "Like" on post above and leaves it at that*


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 26, 2019, 10:40:54 AM
So I managed to land at the Guardian Temple in the Orca, so close that the turret exclusion zone was actually an issue, so it might not be that hard to find parking spaces. The landing conditions detection seems to be pretty exact, looking at the actual touchdown points of the gear rather than just some arbitrary measure of flatness.

And, yay, now I have the Guardian FSD Booster. Taking the Orca paid off when I lost the first SRV finding out that you can't raise the turret too close to your own ship.

Guess it's time for a trip to Colonia.

--Dave


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 27, 2019, 01:06:10 AM
Maybe I'm just weird because I don't like the AspX. I can't even put my finger on it but every time I have to fly mine it subconsciously pisses me off even though it's fully engineered and upgraded. Yes the DBx has a smaller fuel scoop but the last time I did exploring you could basically park it inside the corona of a star without it overheating.

AspX might top up quicker but the constant "Warning! Heat!" and dipping in and out to manage cooling were way more annoying to me than just waiting a little longer. I also had a few close calls where I nearly exploded my ship because I lost concentration after the hundredth jump or so and somehow ignored the heat warning.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 27, 2019, 07:14:39 PM
the constant "Warning! Heat!" and dipping in and out to manage cooling were way more annoying to me than just waiting a little longer. I also had a few close calls where I nearly exploded my ship because I lost concentration after the hundredth jump or so and somehow ignored the heat warning.

There should be no constant "Warning! Heat!", and there should be no dipping in and out. I think I had two heat warnings total on my trip to Beagle Point. Build to prevent this, e.g. take the lowest possible power plant and engineer it up. An Asp Explorer rigged for exploration goes something like this (https://coriolis.io/import?data=H4sIAAAAAAAAA6VYXXOjNhT9Lzx7NEKIr7y1zXab6W43jTvtQ2fHo4AwmmCJkcRm3Uz%2B%2B16wEwMC7DR5SALCR5d7zz33yE8e%2F8al9a68T4rlqrHeyluXooYbzNRw8VnlTcWNd%2FXvk3dj%2BQ4WytpudkIKua2Y4XpTiO8835gdq6r205Vq4brLkum8VkLaABa%2BSO%2BqYJXhK%2B9WC6WF3XtX9Hk1wC05s0bIh4o1MisB3DZac7uxQu5P4O3VK7Z%2FxLa6WYTOSlYUJ9x5QDoXLO4hQnY2TO9UozdbzXLun8AOt2ei8nsYsNemVo9c1xWDf434j5NNBkk14Qnt9MAc4sr7ILdCcq6hJN7Vk%2Fdz1fAaLuzNNSyTJIqDOEpWp%2Ft%2FsB0fQG%2FulTKW57DFJyBEBdlbeX82rHrZAWggCsH1gQif2H37jHcjLd92Uay8vxmgw%2BcoitP2B4LVAsJi1XEljFpwY27MR6XyYzZfkG7bUH5hNcsGaD5BEDnGvoOWoiW434BGH4pCZILLrIeHEQ2IgwV3h1j%2B81dI6vcaMrqD7mAVYPGso3XNM8GqftkypSrI3POosLyrSVfU8FBUcirqjsFa94CZqSq%2BpKpRFLpVPW5sG9mvp9%2BrJ35DPWOKgoCkaeBkLY7P1fNas8ceM1Ac%2BBTHDhBFYTrOfw%2FqkIYvtRUgKZ8hjyfIiEDpMKW%2By7YowAvhvWLecl0ovWMy4z3W4RQlcTLBYR%2BfR225d8dsHw%2BRKCYTb%2B6jwCHemEflHmiYa%2FFtwKWeQBQa6m5KUdjuqfeoRJRSl0%2BFyTeVkqBycstPhAovEYhhuUjkZIDghcpP0DENUEIxxtTN5RjqHB8xitwC47GsDAL6dX09yUM%2FSgmQOE1j9w19HDqBnVOXNuUwCb%2FtHVWpRMFNU9dKH%2BYFdaSl98SctEyNoFwYq8V9Y5XugAMHePzYe4QrpmRmHPXjqI%2BgJ6U8ci%2B4hHv%2FcFYraSaGSohiQuOp9k4WKHTEu%2BNgJPS2194E%2BX5CE5fbyD8rFlPhJSjxJ3hEz4O5sYHChO7AW4prvQcjsJuKiyAS4GAqbUuhHfHc0DBKaTTRx29tFoc2BTPWaRzDpVHazMxjcHBsjtDkLKFjiqPYdwl92BN6dlvaR97%2Bnqbw7DweqkyASJoE1KVG8jYNpSkicUp8dx4tjvR19zZ%2FtUW064zJn8D%2F97vALaU7gp3pVjS8skw%2B9OsS9GbbcflSMw2GjFtW11qxrDSN6Kbwi34dFvV%2BvH4JchuIAadXd4FGzhA28Af7h8ULZXfbwIFDMAlif3DfB%2BEdg5LXu5eAgg%2FgVb7lkms2L%2BUdcHBYfI9fSEg8wfpRCKqdmML0zej%2FIL%2BPQpqAgXRV9m3kJzE4xhRPAAVL4j%2FhH3yEU%2BpPqSuiznmi30ddfj5yOW0lQnjT1uBMTIDW7c%2B35wvs2moYmLbsmSbsHp%2BWzNIdh%2BoNLSyIdUTCCQe7APM7sMeK7I4bEOehw6YY4ag1xW4VUtQdH53TnSMdmtdMaD7gOB1xnA44vnigbyEzEDelWfbQx%2FRHmOFy34wg75vtdn%2FP9v3T%2FbgTo8PiXJTBCDIHFRNw5DSNLljGDWixdL7R6IDjAfDbnRoMto7gM4OtHbTt7tOnzFljNuXFXSO%2B0EHX6%2FXmltmsvGO5aPoHDJdP7qlgQKRd%2B%2FUW013hoUq56nztMYfd3bLdaL40X59%2FAEqcAwdDEwAA).



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 27, 2019, 08:12:03 PM
the constant "Warning! Heat!" and dipping in and out to manage cooling were way more annoying to me than just waiting a little longer. I also had a few close calls where I nearly exploded my ship because I lost concentration after the hundredth jump or so and somehow ignored the heat warning.

There should be no constant "Warning! Heat!", and there should be no dipping in and out. I think I had two heat warnings total on my trip to Beagle Point. Build to prevent this, e.g. take the lowest possible power plant and engineer it up. An Asp Explorer rigged for exploration goes something like this (https://coriolis.io/import?data=H4sIAAAAAAAAA6VYXXOjNhT9Lzx7NEKIr7y1zXab6W43jTvtQ2fHo4AwmmCJkcRm3Uz%2B%2B16wEwMC7DR5SALCR5d7zz33yE8e%2F8al9a68T4rlqrHeyluXooYbzNRw8VnlTcWNd%2FXvk3dj%2BQ4WytpudkIKua2Y4XpTiO8835gdq6r205Vq4brLkum8VkLaABa%2BSO%2BqYJXhK%2B9WC6WF3XtX9Hk1wC05s0bIh4o1MisB3DZac7uxQu5P4O3VK7Z%2FxLa6WYTOSlYUJ9x5QDoXLO4hQnY2TO9UozdbzXLun8AOt2ei8nsYsNemVo9c1xWDf434j5NNBkk14Qnt9MAc4sr7ILdCcq6hJN7Vk%2Fdz1fAaLuzNNSyTJIqDOEpWp%2Ft%2FsB0fQG%2FulTKW57DFJyBEBdlbeX82rHrZAWggCsH1gQif2H37jHcjLd92Uay8vxmgw%2BcoitP2B4LVAsJi1XEljFpwY27MR6XyYzZfkG7bUH5hNcsGaD5BEDnGvoOWoiW434BGH4pCZILLrIeHEQ2IgwV3h1j%2B81dI6vcaMrqD7mAVYPGso3XNM8GqftkypSrI3POosLyrSVfU8FBUcirqjsFa94CZqSq%2BpKpRFLpVPW5sG9mvp9%2BrJ35DPWOKgoCkaeBkLY7P1fNas8ceM1Ac%2BBTHDhBFYTrOfw%2FqkIYvtRUgKZ8hjyfIiEDpMKW%2By7YowAvhvWLecl0ovWMy4z3W4RQlcTLBYR%2BfR225d8dsHw%2BRKCYTb%2B6jwCHemEflHmiYa%2FFtwKWeQBQa6m5KUdjuqfeoRJRSl0%2BFyTeVkqBycstPhAovEYhhuUjkZIDghcpP0DENUEIxxtTN5RjqHB8xitwC47GsDAL6dX09yUM%2FSgmQOE1j9w19HDqBnVOXNuUwCb%2FtHVWpRMFNU9dKH%2BYFdaSl98SctEyNoFwYq8V9Y5XugAMHePzYe4QrpmRmHPXjqI%2BgJ6U8ci%2B4hHv%2FcFYraSaGSohiQuOp9k4WKHTEu%2BNgJPS2194E%2BX5CE5fbyD8rFlPhJSjxJ3hEz4O5sYHChO7AW4prvQcjsJuKiyAS4GAqbUuhHfHc0DBKaTTRx29tFoc2BTPWaRzDpVHazMxjcHBsjtDkLKFjiqPYdwl92BN6dlvaR97%2Bnqbw7DweqkyASJoE1KVG8jYNpSkicUp8dx4tjvR19zZ%2FtUW064zJn8D%2F97vALaU7gp3pVjS8skw%2B9OsS9GbbcflSMw2GjFtW11qxrDSN6Kbwi34dFvV%2BvH4JchuIAadXd4FGzhA28Af7h8ULZXfbwIFDMAlif3DfB%2BEdg5LXu5eAgg%2FgVb7lkms2L%2BUdcHBYfI9fSEg8wfpRCKqdmML0zej%2FIL%2BPQpqAgXRV9m3kJzE4xhRPAAVL4j%2FhH3yEU%2BpPqSuiznmi30ddfj5yOW0lQnjT1uBMTIDW7c%2B35wvs2moYmLbsmSbsHp%2BWzNIdh%2BoNLSyIdUTCCQe7APM7sMeK7I4bEOehw6YY4ag1xW4VUtQdH53TnSMdmtdMaD7gOB1xnA44vnigbyEzEDelWfbQx%2FRHmOFy34wg75vtdn%2FP9v3T%2FbgTo8PiXJTBCDIHFRNw5DSNLljGDWixdL7R6IDjAfDbnRoMto7gM4OtHbTt7tOnzFljNuXFXSO%2B0EHX6%2FXmltmsvGO5aPoHDJdP7qlgQKRd%2B%2FUW013hoUq56nztMYfd3bLdaL40X59%2FAEqcAwdDEwAA).
You don't have a cruise AI or docking computer, but you do have a chaff launcher, a mining laser, and a cargo bay? Try This (https://coriolis.io/outfit/asp?code=A0p0tdFfliddsnf5----------3c1O430j3xv62i3w.AwRj4lXarkg%3D.MwRgDOYExrsCxkXCFiyA.H4sIAAAAAAAAAz2OvRLBUBCFl0iQmMnIJOYOo%2FBbmtQaHsBDeAaVIgqtyhMYj6H0BEahVCroovA7cY9dM3KLr9jv7Lmb0QMi%2BuQYyYzhhk%2BgcioRFfZ5ImS1Em%2BKn4jfvgBfJUAQ20RqaBG1lmcAhq6mySnD2zgcb78BdeShHwVcZ%2Bq%2BhAwJzRmdiJu6Bw0U1y6RLTsNmTUFsPT4H%2FecC%2BDGV6AnJ8LXo1SFD1b1G%2F%2B0urPZ8WptwZ1lPo4A%2Br0vlW0WN%2BoAAAA%3D.EweloBhBmSQUwIYHMA28QgIwVyKBQA%3D%3D&bn=Juan%20Elcano).

Currently on my way back from the bonanza system, figured I would give the Orca a proper shakedown and try neutron boosting, while topping off my materials.

--Dave


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 27, 2019, 09:33:35 PM
An Asp Explorer rigged for exploration goes something like this (https://coriolis.io/import?data=H4sIAAAAAAAAA6VYXXOjNhT9Lzx7NEKIr7y1zXab6W43jTvtQ2fHo4AwmmCJkcRm3Uz%2B%2B16wEwMC7DR5SALCR5d7zz33yE8e%2F8al9a68T4rlqrHeyluXooYbzNRw8VnlTcWNd%2FXvk3dj%2BQ4WytpudkIKua2Y4XpTiO8835gdq6r205Vq4brLkum8VkLaABa%2BSO%2BqYJXhK%2B9WC6WF3XtX9Hk1wC05s0bIh4o1MisB3DZac7uxQu5P4O3VK7Z%2FxLa6WYTOSlYUJ9x5QDoXLO4hQnY2TO9UozdbzXLun8AOt2ei8nsYsNemVo9c1xWDf434j5NNBkk14Qnt9MAc4sr7ILdCcq6hJN7Vk%2Fdz1fAaLuzNNSyTJIqDOEpWp%2Ft%2FsB0fQG%2FulTKW57DFJyBEBdlbeX82rHrZAWggCsH1gQif2H37jHcjLd92Uay8vxmgw%2BcoitP2B4LVAsJi1XEljFpwY27MR6XyYzZfkG7bUH5hNcsGaD5BEDnGvoOWoiW434BGH4pCZILLrIeHEQ2IgwV3h1j%2B81dI6vcaMrqD7mAVYPGso3XNM8GqftkypSrI3POosLyrSVfU8FBUcirqjsFa94CZqSq%2BpKpRFLpVPW5sG9mvp9%2BrJ35DPWOKgoCkaeBkLY7P1fNas8ceM1Ac%2BBTHDhBFYTrOfw%2FqkIYvtRUgKZ8hjyfIiEDpMKW%2By7YowAvhvWLecl0ovWMy4z3W4RQlcTLBYR%2BfR225d8dsHw%2BRKCYTb%2B6jwCHemEflHmiYa%2FFtwKWeQBQa6m5KUdjuqfeoRJRSl0%2BFyTeVkqBycstPhAovEYhhuUjkZIDghcpP0DENUEIxxtTN5RjqHB8xitwC47GsDAL6dX09yUM%2FSgmQOE1j9w19HDqBnVOXNuUwCb%2FtHVWpRMFNU9dKH%2BYFdaSl98SctEyNoFwYq8V9Y5XugAMHePzYe4QrpmRmHPXjqI%2BgJ6U8ci%2B4hHv%2FcFYraSaGSohiQuOp9k4WKHTEu%2BNgJPS2194E%2BX5CE5fbyD8rFlPhJSjxJ3hEz4O5sYHChO7AW4prvQcjsJuKiyAS4GAqbUuhHfHc0DBKaTTRx29tFoc2BTPWaRzDpVHazMxjcHBsjtDkLKFjiqPYdwl92BN6dlvaR97%2Bnqbw7DweqkyASJoE1KVG8jYNpSkicUp8dx4tjvR19zZ%2FtUW064zJn8D%2F97vALaU7gp3pVjS8skw%2B9OsS9GbbcflSMw2GjFtW11qxrDSN6Kbwi34dFvV%2BvH4JchuIAadXd4FGzhA28Af7h8ULZXfbwIFDMAlif3DfB%2BEdg5LXu5eAgg%2FgVb7lkms2L%2BUdcHBYfI9fSEg8wfpRCKqdmML0zej%2FIL%2BPQpqAgXRV9m3kJzE4xhRPAAVL4j%2FhH3yEU%2BpPqSuiznmi30ddfj5yOW0lQnjT1uBMTIDW7c%2B35wvs2moYmLbsmSbsHp%2BWzNIdh%2BoNLSyIdUTCCQe7APM7sMeK7I4bEOehw6YY4ag1xW4VUtQdH53TnSMdmtdMaD7gOB1xnA44vnigbyEzEDelWfbQx%2FRHmOFy34wg75vtdn%2FP9v3T%2FbgTo8PiXJTBCDIHFRNw5DSNLljGDWixdL7R6IDjAfDbnRoMto7gM4OtHbTt7tOnzFljNuXFXSO%2B0EHX6%2FXmltmsvGO5aPoHDJdP7qlgQKRd%2B%2FUW013hoUq56nztMYfd3bLdaL40X59%2FAEqcAwdDEwAA).
You don't have a cruise AI or docking computer, but you do have a chaff launcher, a mining laser, and a cargo bay? Try This (https://coriolis.io/outfit/asp?code=A0p0tdFfliddsnf5----------3c1O430j3xv62i3w.AwRj4lXarkg%3D.MwRgDOYExrsCxkXCFiyA.H4sIAAAAAAAAAz2OvRLBUBCFl0iQmMnIJOYOo%2FBbmtQaHsBDeAaVIgqtyhMYj6H0BEahVCroovA7cY9dM3KLr9jv7Lmb0QMi%2BuQYyYzhhk%2BgcioRFfZ5ImS1Em%2BKn4jfvgBfJUAQ20RqaBG1lmcAhq6mySnD2zgcb78BdeShHwVcZ%2Bq%2BhAwJzRmdiJu6Bw0U1y6RLTsNmTUFsPT4H%2FecC%2BDGV6AnJ8LXo1SFD1b1G%2F%2B0urPZ8WptwZ1lPo4A%2Br0vlW0WN%2BoAAAA%3D.EweloBhBmSQUwIYHMA28QgIwVyKBQA%3D%3D&bn=Juan%20Elcano).

Solid reasons for all of the above:

DW2 expedition (or me at least) left before cruise AI was introduced. Heading out for potentially nine months on a group activity, I chose cargo bay over docking computer to have the ability to carry any weird finds or pass things between players, like when Thargoid-related items first appeared. This has not been needed.

Chaff is used as sparkly fireworks in group screenshots, which is why I took a launcher. Many explorers carry a small mining laser to get items for synthesis if you get stuck somewhere without enough fuel, range boosts or materials to get out. There was a famous thread on the official forums where a stuck person was saved this way. The mining laser also helped me to quickly participate in the DW2 community goals by handing in one mined item so I qualified for the rewards.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 28, 2019, 04:10:35 AM
There should be no constant "Warning! Heat!", and there should be no dipping in and out. I think I had two heat warnings total on my trip to Beagle Point. Build to prevent this, e.g. take the lowest possible power plant and engineer it up.

As I said my last major exploration efforts took place during the Commanders update era (early 2017). I took four long range trips with 20.000+ LY. The first one with my Python (Yes, I know but I didn't know better at the time). Basically a tourist mission to a 15k LY sightseeing spot. The second mission was to the far side of the galaxy far beyond Sag A* with the DBX, third mission was another 20k LY mission on the AspX and then a road to riches trip on the AspX to make money and get the few remaining points towards Elite Explorer rank. Took me about two months total I think.

My problem was that if I built an AspX for maximum exploration efficiency I absolutely loathed flying it (I'm not even a fan of the handling when it's fully tricked out in A rated components and engineered). If I built it so that it was at least tolerable then scooping became a hassle because heat built up much quicker and you usually had to dip in and out of scoopable range two or three times due to heat build up. Which made the refuel, charge FSD, jump cycle much more annoying.

The DBX was better suited for me because I liked the handling much better than on the AspX even with a DBX that was completely optimized for exploration. I could basically park that thing in the corona of a star at zero throttle and it barely got warm and it was much more nimble. I also had a very lucky engineering roll on the FSD. Didn't mind the longer scoop time all that much because I usually spent a lot of time on the map screen anyway scanning for lucrative planet discoveries.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on June 28, 2019, 05:42:25 AM
*hits "Like" on post above and leaves it at that*


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on June 28, 2019, 06:18:01 AM
Thank you.

For me having a ship that was actually fun to fly around the galaxy was more important than the additional downtime. Which is why I don't really get why people explore in a Conda. A full explorer Condo is about as nimble and easy to steer as a fully loaded oil tanker helmed by a drunkard. Yes, you can potentially engineer one for huge jump range but the thought of wrestling that thing to beagle point and back is not something I'm looking forward to.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 28, 2019, 12:13:00 PM
I get that, the way the AspX flies like it should be shedding random bits of hardware instead of engine trails. That's why I kept the Orca. The AspX has an undeniable advantage in making a long crossing, but it feels janky.

The Orca, on the other hand, is a luxury yacht that a gentleman adventurer who already made his pile flies about while pretending to do Science. The SRV bay replaces the swimming pool, it's a hardship but it was that or the virtual reality tank, and what's the point in travelling to new systems if all there is to look at is stars and planets?

For me, the Anaconda was just a no. I calculate transit speed by "time to travel 1000 LY", factoring in the additional time to maneuver around the star and refueling time. Cutting your fuel capacity to only 4 jumps or less to get another few LY range is a false economy, and if you need an entire minute to get out from behind the star to make the jump, it doesn't matter that the jump was 10 LY longer.

--Dave

Edit: I will say, with the "Neutron Highway", 6 jumps worth of fuel is about right (normally I want 10-12 max jumps worth). You have to stop every 10 jumps to repair your FSD anyway, and since not every jump is going to be for max distance, that works about to about a tank full. Run low on fuel, short the next jump to a scoopable star, and drop out of cruise after clearing the star to repair. 9000 LY from the bubble, 12000 to go.

Edit2: I have arrived. Saw a lot of those cubical star formation artifacts on the way, got sick of blue swirly stars. Neutron jumps are certainly a faster way to travel, but also a PITA.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on June 29, 2019, 10:31:02 PM
That's some interesting points about the Orca. I'll have to kit one out and try it before I head too far out. After all, the Beluga has turned out to be my favorite mining ship (so far) so ya never know! LOL  It will be hard to give up the visuals in the Asp though. I don't have VR, but I love rubbernecking around with a view of over 180 degrees side-to-side and close to that top to bottom.  Being able to look down around your feet makes landings a whole lot easier too, above 1G. My biggest complaint with the Phantom was the stupid bulkheads cutting off your view from eye-level up to each side. It's a trivial thing but it's one that gets you over and over and over again if you're actually out there to look at the sights.

I do think running cool is very important. I didn't have an FSD booster in my Phantom and I went for a cool build so it wasn't minmaxed for range. I certainly would have liked the booster range, but I really didn't miss the 2-3ly loss in range due to building for cool instead of minimum weight.  And even then I still used quite a few heat sinks, enough to need to synthesizie reloads a couple times, and I had two launchers.  Mostly that was while I was learning about, messing with and often colliding with white dwarfs and neutron stars though. Also there's a type of red star (T Tauri maybe?) that seems to have you drop in much closer to the exclusion zone and overheating area than all the other star types.  That one surprises me still sometimes, though I haven't actually hit one in ages.  I did come close in the Type-9 just because the damn thing turns so slow.

And I'm still Harmless Combat rank, but I'm about to level up and can no longer claim that I've never fired a ship weapon in combat. I've melted a couple NPC pirates now (and rammed one to death LOL) in my Type-10 if they come challenge me solo, though I haven't been brave enough to take on a wing of pirates yet.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 29, 2019, 11:24:17 PM
When I'm out exploring, I filter T Tauri stars out. You can't scoop them, they never have planets. the only thing they are good for is getting fried because you tried to refuel or stranded because you waited until you were out of fuel to fill up. When I'm scanning, I skip everything below K (except neutrons/black holes) because they rarely have anything interesting enough to pay for the stop.

I used to drive-by scoop, grab a little fuel on my way around a star, now I just go to 90 degrees, get around it, and wait until I am sucking fumes. I've yet to hit the disruption line on a neutron, and I just bounced through 100+ in a row. I never carry heat sinks, the proper solution is "Don't hug the star". I have had to repair a little heat damage, but not recently.

Realized something about the Fermi Paradox looking at the sky in the vicinity of Colonia: Earth/Sol is in a sparse, backwater section of the galaxy. There's nearly no sources for 'high energy' cosmological events in our immediate vicinity. The only A class within 20 LY is Altair (16.7 LY away), no known black holes or neutron star pairs (nor remnants of OBA supernova). There's probably 100+ within the same radius of Colonia, . Having a supernova that close is Very Bad, and most worlds are going to experience that kind of event from a close neighbor on a regular basis.

We're very close to an inter-arm rift, in a very thin stellar neighborhood, and accordingly we have very little risk of being fried to the bedrock, even on timescales of billions of years. Maybe we haven't heard from anyone because only isolated systems like ours have the stability to develop intelligent life?

--Dave


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on June 30, 2019, 03:35:14 PM
I've long considered many of the assumptions used for calculating the probability of intelligent life and the resulting Fermi "paradox" to be wildly optimistic. So much guesswork involved, and so many unknowns ignored. The universe is an incredibly dangerous, inhospitable place. Just the amount of radiation sloshing around alone is inimical to life in most places (that aren't intergalactic voids, and I'm not sure about them) even without extraordinary events like supernovae and more mundane extinction-level events like meteorites and solar flares limiting how much time is available for intelligence to evolve before extinction hits. I think the original formulation ignored the near-mandatory requirement of a magnetic field/shield (not to mention absolutely no data to make even an educated guess as to the probability of such), and even the parameters of the fabled Goldilocks zone are coming under scrutiny recently and may well be much narrower than was originally thought. I personally also think our large close moon was a huge factor, the tides really do drive the circulatory system of the planet.  Not to mention all the stuff out there we don't know about yet, almost all of it more likely to be disadvantageous to life than otherwise.

As for the T Tauri stars and other undesirables, I went back and forth on filtering them while exploring. If everyone else ignores them, it's easier to get first discoveries, but while that's a nice little Skinner-box pellet, it's not really very satisfying anymore after the first dozen or so.  I'm more interested in seeing at least one of everything out there to see, preferably finding them rather than being led to them via guided tour, and finding cool sights and getting good pictures of them. And I'd be thrilled to find some new interesting thing that nobody else had seen yet, but I know that's extremely unlikely. So when you say T Tauri stars never have planets, is that hyperbole or actual fact? Because I thought I'd seen some with planets, but could be wrong.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 30, 2019, 04:11:03 PM
I've long considered many of the assumptions used for calculating the probability of intelligent life and the resulting Fermi "paradox" to be wildly optimistic. So much guesswork involved, and so many unknowns ignored. The universe is an incredibly dangerous, inhospitable place. Just the amount of radiation sloshing around alone is inimical to life in most places (that aren't intergalactic voids, and I'm not sure about them) even without extraordinary events like supernovae and more mundane extinction-level events like meteorites and solar flares limiting how much time is available for intelligence to evolve before extinction hits. I think the original formulation ignored the near-mandatory requirement of a magnetic field/shield (not to mention absolutely no data to make even an educated guess as to the probability of such), and even the parameters of the fabled Goldilocks zone are coming under scrutiny recently and may well be much narrower than was originally thought. I personally also think our large close moon was a huge factor, the tides really do drive the circulatory system of the planet.  Not to mention all the stuff out there we don't know about yet, almost all of it more likely to be disadvantageous to life than otherwise.

As for the T Tauri stars and other undesirables, I went back and forth on filtering them while exploring. If everyone else ignores them, it's easier to get first discoveries, but while that's a nice little Skinner-box pellet, it's not really very satisfying anymore after the first dozen or so.  I'm more interested in seeing at least one of everything out there to see, preferably finding them rather than being led to them via guided tour, and finding cool sights and getting good pictures of them. And I'd be thrilled to find some new interesting thing that nobody else had seen yet, but I know that's extremely unlikely. So when you say T Tauri stars never have planets, is that hyperbole or actual fact? Because I thought I'd seen some with planets, but could be wrong.

I've never seen one, and I can't find any mention of any, but what complicates it is that the actual T Tauri system the type is named for is not a T Tauri type star in ED (It's a scoopable G with several planets). But T Tauri stars should really have huge planetary nebula (giant ring systems), and they don't, so....

M and even L systems often have planets, but they're almost always Icy Bodies or Rocky Ice, and comparatively low counts, nothing terraformable or gas giants with complex satellite systems of their own. I did find a bunch of Earthlikes around a Y once...but it was orbiting an F.

I tend to go deep where almost everything is unscanned, and then it is just matter of how many stops I can make before it gets old and I run back to civilization. Since I have a 95+% chance of being the first to every system, skipping the ones unlikely to have anything interesting or bankable works for me. I've noticed that most of the OBA's have been scanned even 3000+ LY out, presumably because those are most likely to have the black holes and neutrons that pay so well. But now that I'm in Colonia and can't swing a cat without hitting a dozen, I can probably find some fairly close that I am first to. But before I did that, I'd take a flier in a weird direction and go really deep (15K from the nearest settled system). I have more cash than I need, so the only in-game incentive for scanning now is to buy faction boosts without a lot of mission running.

--Dave


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on August 08, 2019, 03:15:30 PM
So, a knee injury has made sitting at a desk extremely painful, not to mention my computer desk is upstairs. I just don't think I can handle the controls using a laptop on a la-z-boy so I haven't even tried, and subsequently haven't logged in to ED in two months. But I'm getting better, and I keep finding myself daydreaming about flying through space and seeing cool sights and such.

I'm not even playing and I feel the dark calling me!  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 08, 2019, 04:04:51 PM
I'm still in Beagle Point because our first child was born in late June, so now when I finally get that moment to fire up a game (between like 9:35pm and 9:40pm), my eyes close before I can do a single jump. I'm thinking of inching towards Colonia over the next year or so, and this is why I was never worried about the slowness of the next Elite Dangerous content update. Pleased that I had already picked this renowned "Dad" game and hope it will be a hit with the boy.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Yegolev on August 08, 2019, 04:10:45 PM
lol parenthood

Welcome to the club.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on August 23, 2019, 07:47:19 AM
Fleet Carriers operated by players are coming in December. They are basically moving space stations, with 16 landing pads where you can yours and your friends' ships landing, rearming, refueling, and using different services based on what kind of carrier you outfit, like mining, mercenary, exploration, etc. Awesome stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNNj97HznUU


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 23, 2019, 09:33:18 AM
Jings


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on August 23, 2019, 07:49:41 PM
hm, I wonder if that other space sim will be whipping up a new batch of RL-expensive unplayable-at-this-time virtual spaceships to distract the true believers


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on August 26, 2019, 10:15:14 PM
Thinking about it, an A-rated combat equipped Corvette or Cutter can easily run over a billion. A fleet carrier can *carry* 8 of those, plus 8 smaller ships and has it's own armor and firepower on top of it, and may even be indestructible?  I will be surprised if they go for anything less than 100 billion, and absolutely flabbergasted if they are as little as 50 billion which I saw some of the fanboys calling for.  Honestly I'd expect something in the 200-500 billion range, though I'd hope for less since I can't imagine ever having that much money myself. 100 billion, maybe.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on August 27, 2019, 01:07:36 AM
Money is fairly easy to come by, it's just another grind goal if the price is that high.

Not that I'm saying I'd do such a thing, of course.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on August 27, 2019, 01:22:12 AM
Going by the numbers I see on screen whenever I catch a streamer streaming Elite, we'll probably see two dozen of them on launch day. Fully tricked out.

That game has a serious case of inflation going


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on August 27, 2019, 08:55:46 AM
I have maybe 5B banked (plus about that much in vehicles), and that's mostly the product of a week's work. Somebody with the right brand of OCD could easily build up hundreds of billions, and some of the long running player factions like Hutto Orbital Trucker's Association could probably make it look like small change.

--Dave


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on August 27, 2019, 04:52:19 PM
ANyone that does not think there will not be a traffic jam of these things on day 1 is incredably nieve. People will already be beavering away to get the purchase price, and will have been for weeks.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on August 27, 2019, 05:00:30 PM
I might be one of those people even! LOL  But yeah, other than money what other non-nuclear tools do they have to make these things at least somewhat less common than Sidewinders?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on September 12, 2019, 07:20:47 PM
I finally moved my spaceship from Beagle Point.... even further away from Sol. The blackness is even blacker and the Milky Way even fainter. Will post screenshots when back on my gaming machine.

Made it to Oevasy SG-Y d0 (https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Oevasy_SG-Y_d0) (aka Ishum's Reach) which is 547.52 ly further than Beagle Point. Now all I have to do is fly 65,647.34 ly back to Sol and not crash before landing somewhere. This is a challenge with the sleeplessness of early parenthood... there were failed attempts to leave Beagle Point due to falling asleep mid-jump.

Nearest station is Explorer's Anchorage near Sag A. Might head for Colonia instead.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on September 13, 2019, 06:49:14 PM
Sag A is pretty much on the way to Colonia from Beagle Point isn't it?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on September 14, 2019, 12:35:01 AM
Not really. I could go to Sag A and then Colonia. But I've just come from Sag A. While I could spend the whole of either journey in nothing but unexplored systems, Beagle Point to Colonia will take me through far less-trodden parts of space.

Beagle Point to Sag A
(https://i.imgur.com/042gquF.jpg)

Beagle Point to Colonia
(https://i.imgur.com/QVqSxZJ.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on September 14, 2019, 12:56:37 AM
Made it to Oevasy SG-Y d0 (https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Oevasy_SG-Y_d0) (aka Ishum's Reach) which is 547.52 ly further than Beagle Point. Now all I have to do is fly 65,647.34 ly back to Sol and not crash before landing somewhere.

Looking back at the Milky Way.

(https://i.imgur.com/2GaGhD6.jpg)


Looking in the opposite direction.

(https://i.imgur.com/UqRo0E8.png)


Pretty much the edge of the map.

(https://i.imgur.com/oEaFdJg.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Ironwood on September 14, 2019, 01:35:53 AM
Damn.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on September 22, 2019, 07:03:30 PM
Dammit Tale, those pics from the edge of the galaxy are making me want to head out again!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on January 15, 2020, 07:28:20 PM
So I jumped back in to Elite over the weekend.  Woke up on a planet outside the sphere with Guardian ruins. I think I was trying to get the Guardian FSD booster or something.  No clue how to even drive the rover any more, much less fight in it. No clue how to take off either!  :why_so_serious:

So, a few hours later, after finding my keyboard cheat sheet, watching a couple videos, and running through the new tutorial, I jumped back in again again, tooled around a little in the moon buggy, then took off in my trusty AspX "I'll Be Back".  I haven't found the screenshot button again yet, so no new pics.

I flew the dozen hops or so back to my home base, re-learning how to fly, land on planets, scoop, scan, and plot routes along the way.  Re-learned how to request landing permission and land in stations at the end too, didn't even lose any paint.  :grin:

Swapped to my orcaminer "Greed is Good" and headed out to the Hyades double paininte place and re-learned how to restock, repair, laser mine, dump limpets and avoid interdictions.  To the tune of about half a billion credits in three runs over an afternoon and evening.  Definitely got the landing in stations thing down again, didn't catch a fin a single time coming or going.

Supposedly there was a patch yesterday that changes the economy a bit, which might have some effect on the outrageous profitability of mining. Or not. I haven't checked yet.

I feel the call of the black.  I want that Guardian FSD booster first, but I don't want to fight for it. Hmm. Maybe I'll just go mine some more?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 15, 2020, 07:48:13 PM
If you're going exploring, get that booster. It's a stupid mechanism for obtaining it, but doable, and you only need one for a permanent 10 ly boost to all jumps (he said, stalled on the wrong side of the galaxy - I've been playing mostly Ghost Recon Wildlands between baby-wrangling).

(edit) P.S. I intend to get back to the bubble later this year, in time for the next major expansion pack/season pass.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on January 16, 2020, 05:36:21 PM
Yeah, I need to bite the bullet and just get it over with.  I'll be happy to have done so once I've accomplished it for sure. But I really hate timed missions of any kind any more.  Just too much stress in my life already to be adding adding another stressor as part of my relaxation/entertainment.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on June 03, 2020, 07:44:33 AM
Holy Shit? Walking in stations planets.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wu8oqlXUag&feature=em-uploademail


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on July 08, 2020, 10:00:53 PM
psa: the krait phantom is the most enjoyable exploration ship


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: eldaec on July 09, 2020, 04:21:21 PM
I finally got around to trying this.

It is very pretty, also where were lateral thrusters when I needed them 1984?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 09, 2020, 06:17:27 PM
psa: the krait phantom is the most enjoyable exploration ship

I'm still on the other side of the galaxy in an Asp Explorer, having made only a few hundred jumps towards home since becoming a father a year ago.

I'm determined not to use the explodey means of getting home, as I have possibly billions worth of exploration data on board. But when I left, the Krait Phantom was brand new and Supercruise Assist wasn't in the game yet.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on July 10, 2020, 05:57:27 PM
You can check with these guys (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/the-deep-space-support-array-dssa-a-fleetcomm-initiative.540166/) to see if there's a carrier near you, for docking, repair, etc.  Also, if you're near or can get to Colonia, there are carrier shuttles happening, park your ship at one, log in next day and you're in the Bubble.  


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on July 12, 2020, 02:51:54 PM
psa: the krait phantom is the most enjoyable exploration ship

I'm still on the other side of the galaxy in an Asp Explorer, having made only a few hundred jumps towards home since becoming a father a year ago.

I'm determined not to use the explodey means of getting home, as I have possibly billions worth of exploration data on board. But when I left, the Krait Phantom was brand new and Supercruise Assist wasn't in the game yet.

gimme your current location and i'll see which fleet carrier is nearest you with shipyard or outfitting


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on July 13, 2020, 01:15:05 PM
I'm going to guess OEVASY SG-Y D0 - Beagle Point, per his images a couple posts up.  There probably are carriers going there and back to Colonia on a regular basis.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on July 19, 2020, 07:14:24 AM
Damn you all.. I had to break out he HOTAS to fire up this game after a 2 year recess. Lots of new shit to learn....


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on July 22, 2020, 06:53:30 PM
So how much is a carrier anyway? Both to buy and to maintain? I haven't played since just before they released. 

I have played a fair amount of No Man's Sky recently. It's not the laughable empty shell of a prototype of a proof-of-concept it launched as, and it has a lot of different fun and interesting things to do in the game. Much more than E:D.  But I hate it's graphics, and pretty much everything in space is, at best, a super-simple arcade game, at worst a sad cartoony joke.  I'd love to have a cross between E:D and NMS, with E:D's graphics and physics and spaceflight simulator and stellar forge and mapping, but with something like NMS's quests and crafting and base building and mining and overall planetary experience.  Oh, and without E:D's square star clusters.  I find I like NMS more the less time I spend in my spaceship. Which is a really sad thing to say about a space travel game!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 23, 2020, 08:30:55 AM
I'm still on the other side of the galaxy in an Asp Explorer, having made only a few hundred jumps towards home since becoming a father a year ago.

I'm determined not to use the explodey means of getting home, as I have possibly billions worth of exploration data on board. But when I left, the Krait Phantom was brand new and Supercruise Assist wasn't in the game yet.

gimme your current location and i'll see which fleet carrier is nearest you with shipyard or outfitting

Thanks - sorry for the long delay on replying. I avoid logging into Elite Dangerous if I'm very tired as I'll just fall asleep and crash my ship into a sun... and that's how life has been lately. Logged in tonight and I was in PYRIE EURK AS-J C22-0


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on July 30, 2020, 08:04:23 PM
I'm still on the other side of the galaxy in an Asp Explorer, having made only a few hundred jumps towards home since becoming a father a year ago.

I'm determined not to use the explodey means of getting home, as I have possibly billions worth of exploration data on board. But when I left, the Krait Phantom was brand new and Supercruise Assist wasn't in the game yet.

gimme your current location and i'll see which fleet carrier is nearest you with shipyard or outfitting

Thanks - sorry for the long delay on replying. I avoid logging into Elite Dangerous if I'm very tired as I'll just fall asleep and crash my ship into a sun... and that's how life has been lately. Logged in tonight and I was in PYRIE EURK AS-J C22-0

Checking


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on July 30, 2020, 08:26:10 PM
Your nearest is the DSSA Distant Worlds [V2W-85Z] currently hard stationed at Beagle Point. it has Refuel, Repair, Armoury, Redemption Office, Shipyard, Outfitting, Secure Warehouse, UC and won't ever move as long as it is part of DSSA

There is also DSSA Tartarus [XBQ-LVV] at EISHAW DB-W E2-0


Quote
So how much is a carrier anyway? Both to buy and to maintain? I haven't played since just before they released.

5 billion to buy, then you can keep purchasing upgrades for its stock availability. They cost some millions each week, but as long as mining hauls are as serious as they are, you can earn yourself a year of operating costs in ... like, a week or two


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on July 31, 2020, 07:11:03 PM
so, millions per week upkeep ... does that accrue while you are offline or only while playing? I'm not buying into something that will go poof on me if I don't log in regularly to keep it fed.  I'm old enough to know myself and know that not only do I have a short attention span, but I *really* resent being forced to login just to maintain something I've already earned.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on August 01, 2020, 07:37:33 AM
I have the impression that Frontier have put that in as a cash sink to drain the stupid amounts of money out of the economy. Which is frankly dumb. I think they probably fear a player revolt if the mining rewards were kicked down to a rational level

Personally, I don't think I would go near one for that reason.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Pennilenko on August 01, 2020, 09:12:14 AM
I really liked Elite: Dangerous. I haven't played it in quite some time because it strayed too far into the "work at it like a second job" to have anything cool territory.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 01, 2020, 02:53:18 PM
Everyone wanting to fly around in their own personal guild hall is the problem, not the upkeep.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on August 01, 2020, 08:23:25 PM
Well, I'll admit they are just another "meaningless" mudflation symptom if everyone has one.  But I'm not sure that's entirely a bad thing. I'm not much of a fan of epeen elitist bragging rights bullshit. And I couldn't care less about having my own "guild hall" with respect to something designed for multiple players.  However, I was REALLY liking the idea of hauling my small collection of ships around, even out into some lonely back corner of the galaxy somewhere. I would MUCH prefer a mechanic that makes moving one very expensive, but just owning one would only require a small maintenance fee which only applied when you were actually online or maybe each time you launch from it or something.  Again, no way am I getting hooked into a scenario where I could lose the damn thing and all my investment if I lost interest or got busy IRL for a few months.  If that happened, I for sure would never play again, nor ever give them any more money. As it is, it's quite possible I may well never give them any more money anyway solely because that mechanic is there blocking my access to something I would otherwise likely very much enjoy. 


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: eldaec on August 02, 2020, 11:22:40 AM
Everyone wanting to fly around in their own personal guild hall is the problem, not the upkeep.

Why?

If the game's content is structured around having a variety of ships that need to be moved around a galaxy, why is it a problem that lots of people can do it?

Elite's problem is keeping up with players consuming content. Exploration and procedural galaxy is a great trick for it. If they can fill that galaxy with shit to do it makes sense for players to have a way to haul their shit to the content.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on August 02, 2020, 03:38:48 PM
Not saying you are wrong but you could already pay for your ships to be moved to a station, so there already was a way in game


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 02, 2020, 04:37:41 PM
Not saying you are wrong but you could already pay for your ships to be moved to a station, so there already was a way in game

[you could only summon ships, not send ships]


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on August 02, 2020, 05:24:35 PM
Not saying you are wrong but you could already pay for your ships to be moved to a station, so there already was a way in game

[you could only summon ships, not send ships]

and only to existing stations, not to your own private corner of the black


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: MahrinSkel on August 02, 2020, 06:02:51 PM
And billions aren't really that much, once you've bootstrapped into your first serious ship, making any arbitrary amount doesn't take that long. I could probably buy a carrier with the data I'm sitting on from my wanderings in the deep black. I've been stockpiling them by accident, just not cashing in except for faction rep.

Or, like 20 hours sucking up Low Temperature Diamonds.

--Dave


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on August 02, 2020, 06:39:46 PM
Like the changes to exploring... so nice not having to fly to each and every planet. But flying out to see a black hole I remembered why I never got into exploring... whole lotta nothing with the occasional cool screenshot moment. And worse than that is having to fly all the way back in order to do anything else the game offers.

As for Carriers - no thanks. It's nothing but a money sink and I am not invested enough to work for the upkeep. I liked having come back after a year or so and having everything right where I left it - considering this game burns me out pretty quick at times. I am having a blast revamping my Cutter/Conda/Python/Clipper. Even dabbling with kitting out a Vulture just to merit farm for Powerplay for the packhounds. I did the prismatic grind by doing the postal supply carrying for smurfette and now really only use Bi-weaves... still, have a 4,5,6 engineered prismatics for a trader if I ever see fit to do that.  I do hate the 4 week waiting period, but meh...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on August 06, 2020, 11:00:09 AM
Billions aren't that much, if you have them.

Recent changes to mining reduced the amounts found in hotspots, and without that one diamond asteroid, it's back to more reasonable levels.  

But they also fixed the station supply and demand for commodities, so you can't SELL your diamonds, at least not for 1.6 or even 1.1 million per.  400k per ton, sure.  

Anyway, as a side-effect, the supplies of tritium priced at 4k have been bought out, and the supplies at 30-40k are diminishing.  Colonia had very few stations; the carriers there basically wiped out all NPC sources of tritium.  

You pretty much have to mine your tritium for your carrier now.

20,000 tons of tritium for a trip to Colonia and back.  About 800 million to 1 billion credits to buy the Tritium, if you're in the Bubble.  Or mine it at approximately 150 tons per hour (if you find a hotspot), if you're not in the Bubble.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Surlyboi on January 10, 2021, 09:43:58 PM
Rise, Chicken!

https://www.elitedangerous.com/odyssey/

I can put boots on the ground? Hell yeah.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 11, 2021, 09:29:26 AM
Very excited about it. The shooting though? I am afraid it will be underwhelming and a waste of development time. Hopefully not.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on January 12, 2021, 01:16:18 AM
Very excited about it. The shooting though? I am afraid it will be underwhelming and a waste of development time. Hopefully not.

My guess would be that the whole shooting thing is just to rub it in for Star Citizen though I'm sure they won't admit to that.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 13, 2021, 05:22:20 AM
Delayed (https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/359320/view/3050593350013031611)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on January 15, 2021, 07:40:24 AM
Quote
Our PC plans have only been affected by a small amount

Barely.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on February 16, 2021, 11:05:03 PM
Steam records that I finally managed to put another 9.8 hours into flying back from beyond Beagle Point towards Sag A.

The mess of bookmarks on the far left is the Beagle Point area. The mess on the far right is the bubble, with Sag A in the middle of the central mass of stars, of course. I've added a red arrow to show how far I've got in about 20 months of parenthood.

(https://i.imgur.com/zgaRn5y.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: SurfD on February 21, 2021, 11:35:11 PM
So, a while back I picked up Elite: Dangerous as a freebie through the Epic Game store, and finally got around to installing it and taking it for a spin.

Couple of hours later I am at least moderately comfortable toolin around the local starter systems, though I don't think I am going to try anything combat related with how crazy it is attempting accurate flight with a mouse.

That being said, any advice for a complete noob? Right now, I am basically just running courier missions and "find and retrieve data modules in space junk" missions for the locals while I try to figure out where I need to go to get a ship I can mount a mining laser on.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: SurfD on February 24, 2021, 08:12:48 PM
Well, after a few more hours messing around, I have come to two conclusions:         
- Combat with a mouse isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be (still pretty janky compared to what flying with a stick must be like, but at least manageable.)                           
- Whoever designed the mining system in this game needs to be beaten with a club.........

Like, for the love of god, please tell me mining gets less tedious or there are modules out there that make the experience somewhat more enjoyable than wiping my ass with sandpaper.

I grabbed some mining lasers, a refiner module, and a limpet controller (since the mining codex recommended it).  Spent like 15 minutes trying to figure out where to buy limpets from because the game apparently doesn't re-stock stock "ammo" for special equipment when you click the easy restock button on the main docking widget.

Then I spent another like 4 hours in the newb system trying to refine 2 units of Smarium, which apparently is rarer than hell.   Cant figure out if there is a way to scan asteroids to see what their content is, so I just ended up wandering around this asteroid belt for an eternity blasting random asteroids hoping to get the mineral I was looking for off them.   And then the resource collection system is like it was freaking designed by a sadist.   I have to manually cargo scoop shit by ever so carefully flying into it? Seriously?  Oh, but you can get around that with Collector Limpets.  Except limpet drones are CONSUMABLE, 1 time use fuckers?  So I have to fill my cargo hold with these things and then burn them all to, if I am lucky, collect enough asteroid chunks to get 2 units of minerals?

Like who the fuck thought that was a good idea?  Do tractor beams not exist?  Or at the very least, don't make the goddamned drones one time use garbage that take up an entire cargo space individually.......

Unless things get significantly better with some magical equipment upgrades I am missing, I don't think I will ever touch mining again.......


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on February 24, 2021, 11:01:43 PM
I've been hoping someone else would help you out, because I've been on an exploration expedition (including a gap where I didn't play much) since 2019 and my knowledge is rusty. I haven't even used the current mining system much, or the newbie system (in the old days you just started in LHS 3447 inside the main game), and I don't bother using any codex. There are ships and modules that I've never seen, because they were introduced after I headed into the black! But here goes.

1. I've been playing with a mouse and keyboard for 1682 hours, so I regard it as fine for PvE and exploring and general tooling around. Tweak the key bindings to whatever works for you. Just don't expect any success in PvP. Gankers use HOTAS and VR headset and fully-engineered ships and live and breathe the game.

2. This is the revised mining system! The old one was the tedious one. There is a way to scan asteroids to see their content: a prospector limpet controller. Basically you fire one into the asteroid and it tells you what's in it. Regarding the collector limpets: they're designed for collection of everything, not just mining (e.g. resources that fall off ships you kill). They are single use in that you get to fire them once, but they have a long lifespan if you're using them the right way, i.e. you move along to the next asteroid with the same collector limpets following you around. I can't remember how to do that exactly, but the other thing I can add is that the new mining system also has the ability blow the fucking asteroid up completely and gather the pieces. Lasers are the old way.

And tractor beams don't exist because it's Expanse-type "sort of realistic" sci-fi where Star Trek-ish stuff won't ever exist. Having to bring along a lot of limpets and use them up doesn't really bother you later when you've got a decent-sized cargo hold. The journey to wealth and bigger ships is now shorter than it used to be, so don't worry too much about what you can and can't do in the little ships.

Find what you enjoy! You don't have to mine if you don't like it. Oh except for Painite. There's an important engineer later who wants stupid amounts of Painite in order to unlock their services. That's many people's experience of mining :)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on March 04, 2021, 07:53:30 PM
Sorry I missed this earlier. Reddit has a fantastic mining community with top notch guides and info. https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteMiners/wiki/index is a good place to start, along with anything else on the right sidebar.  There are two functionally useful methods of mining, laser and core, and you need to outfit your ship differently depending on which you want to use.  It's all spelled out on their site.

I also went M&K, and don't regret it. The key was remapping almost everything to get a functional keyboard layout. I can't find my original link, but I think https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=478686362 might be it or is really close. I tweaked a couple things but it's a great starting point.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 05, 2021, 09:01:41 AM
IMHO Odyssey PvE looks Not Good (https://youtu.be/lrLjC47iwlY).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on March 05, 2021, 01:03:54 PM
In some ways I love watching those stylized demos because they reflect what the devs expect in an ideal world... meanwhile, in the real world all those boxes would be looted, the mobs would be melee'd with helmets and teabagged accordingly.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on March 09, 2021, 08:09:23 AM
It does not look good and frankly who ever really wanted that? Luckily, it can be ignored. Or maybe experienced once or twice to feel like the universe is bigger, and then forgotten. I would have liked some planets with functioning bases to land to, pick up quests, have a drink, get that feeling of a space outpost, sure. It would have also felt more like Elite 2, which somehow felt grand in that sense from the opening cutscene. But that shooter part feels so immensely generic that I hate to think so much resources is going into it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 25, 2021, 09:02:44 AM
150 jumps to go until I try to make my first populated landing since early 2019 (thinking of doing a few practice dockings on my alt account first). Here's how my paintwork is looking on the loading screen.

(https://i.imgur.com/K1MWQy8.jpg)

Edit: early 2019. Not mid-2019. Even scarier.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sky on March 25, 2021, 09:49:06 AM
I haven't been following this thread...I love the idea of the game, but the time investment isn't conducive to my lifestyle or whatnot  :why_so_serious:

I'm kinda amazed that Tale has been trying to get back from the hinterlands for almost two years of earth time. That's bananas but also amazing but mostly bananas.

That shooting/raid video looked like a prettier Empyrion  :grin:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 25, 2021, 05:20:36 PM
I'm kinda amazed that Tale has been trying to get back from the hinterlands for almost two years of earth time. That's bananas but also amazing but mostly bananas.

The biggest reason it's taken two real years is that for most of that time, I didn't play the game. But here's an explanation for non-players.

I did this expedition with 13,614 other players in 2019 (https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Distant_Worlds_II), from January until June. It was such a long way that only 3,747 completed the journey.

This left me on the wrong side of the 1:1 simulated Milky Way, with a case of burnout on the game. Most players spend their gaming time in a small part of the Milky Way centred on Sol (Earth's system), known as "the bubble". That's what everyone else has been doing in this thread. That's where the storyline and combat and trading and alien invaders all happen.

Back in real life, my son was born at the end of June 2019. Most of my gaming time ended. I played Ghost Recon Wildlands as my late night poison. Elite seemed too much of a commitment.

But I made a few attempts to get going again. Reversing six months of jumping in the wrong direction was just too much. What it took was a couple of sick days recently where I sat up in bed and just jumped my ship, finally making a dent in the map.

What I'll soon reach is only halfway home. It's the most far-flung station, near Sagittarius A", the black hole at the centre of the galaxy.

I could have just blown up my ship on the far side of the map and respawned near Sol, without having to do the return journey. But along the way (and on the return journey) I've put a lot of time into scanning star systems and planets and moons nobody else has ever visited. Thousands of them.

What reaching this space station will do is enable me to sell that data. It's worth a fortune. Less of a fortune than I'd have made if I'd stayed back in the bubble, mining asteroids, trading and shooting enemy ships, but I'll also get my name permanently on all the places I've discovered, visible to anyone else who ever travels through them or finds them on the map.

And there are some awesome ones. Earth-like worlds in huge trinary systems. A ringed water world that is a moon of a gas giant. Ammonia worlds that could be the undiscovered home of the Thargoids, the alien invaders.

Or I could blow up on landing and lose it all. But I'll still have a special decal I can put on the outside of my ship, visible to all, showing I completed the 2019 expedition.






Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on March 25, 2021, 06:09:40 PM
Or I could blow up on landing and lose it all.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Earth-like worlds in huge trinary systems. A ringed water world that is a moon of a gas giant. Ammonia worlds that could be the undiscovered home of the Thargoids, the alien invaders. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on March 25, 2021, 06:10:36 PM
I was stupid/curious enough to pay for the Alpha Access Version of Odyssey so I’ll probably get back into Elite once that becomes available on March 29th.

Given that we’re currently screwing up our Covid response with the end in sight I’ll have plenty of time in 3rd wave lockdown to play it.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 25, 2021, 08:47:25 PM
Or I could blow up on landing and lose it all.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Earth-like worlds in huge trinary systems. A ringed water world that is a moon of a gas giant. Ammonia worlds that could be the undiscovered home of the Thargoids, the alien invaders. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

Awesome. I will say this. And probably expire IRL if that happens.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 26, 2021, 06:13:37 AM
Odyssey alpha launching on 29th. Being done in phases. Here are the phases.

Phase 1 sounds crashy. Everything else being undated sounds suspiciously like it's not even implemented in pre-alpha yet.

Quote
PHASE ONE: FIRST STEPS

New Commander issued for every participant
In a single star system to maximise player interaction
Remlok Maverick scavenger suit available for purchase
Access to Takada and Kinematic weapon sets
Apex Interstellar available for player travel
Variety of activities available including salvage and collect /delivery missions.


PHASE TWO: COMBAT

Open up 20LY of space for travel
Players can now purchase ships
Manticore Dominator combat suit available for purchase
Faction conflicts will be enabled
Frontline Solutions available
Missions for neighbouring systems available, including trading with settlements and POIs


PHASE THREE: EXPLORATION

Increase playable ‘bubble’ to 50LY
Includes unexplored planets, allowing for First Footfall experience
Supratech Artemis explorer suit available for purchase
Players can analyse organics with the Genetic Sampler tool


PHASE FOUR: COMPATABILITY

Snapshot of players’ Commanders added to ALPHA
Carriers, ships, fighters and SRVs can be used


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 01, 2021, 03:48:09 PM
Tale, that paint job looks awesome!!!! I wouldn't touch it! Well, not intentionally. I'd probably end up hitting the wrong button late some evening while refueling or outfitting.  :oh_i_see:




Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 01, 2021, 05:36:06 PM
Agree. I think it will also disappear next time I blow up. Not that I'm going to to, of course. Something like 60 jumps left to do, next time I get a chance.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 05, 2021, 11:34:18 AM
I made it! Docked at Explorer's Anchorage near Sagittarius A*.

Seeing other ships in supercruise was weird. I hadn't seen that effect since 2019. When I landed, I fitted a Supercruise Assist module, which wasn't in the game when I departed the bubble.

Selling my alleged billions in exploration data netted 250 million, which makes sense when I actually think about it, because it was perhaps 25 pages' worth (50 systems per page) averaging about 10 million credits per page.

My paintwork is at 0% and I've kept it that way. Ship integrity also 0%, but I fixed that. The decal that is my expedition reward is available! Can't even see it on 0% paintwork however - will put it on another ship later.

Now all I've got to do is travel another 25,899 light years back to Sol, which would be another 404 jumps for my ship. Hopefully I can hitch a ride with a fleet carrier instead.

Here are my exploration stats.
(https://i.imgur.com/MpMHwbs.jpg)

Selling one page of data.
(https://i.imgur.com/74tMDEQ.jpg)

View of paintwork on the outfitting screen.
(https://i.imgur.com/ux6dLSJ.jpg)

Decal and how it (doesn't) look on my current ship, Scarpa.
(https://i.imgur.com/FOkxcag.jpg)

0% paintwork and integrity
(https://i.imgur.com/CJYCCQu.jpg)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on April 05, 2021, 12:14:51 PM
gg


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on April 05, 2021, 12:38:04 PM
Ship integrity also 0%, but I fixed that.
Does that mean if ship integrity went negative your ship would've blown up? And were there opportunities to repair on the way back or was that station the first chance to do so?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 05, 2021, 04:20:34 PM
Ship integrity also 0%, but I fixed that.
Does that mean if ship integrity went negative your ship would've blown up? And were there opportunities to repair on the way back or was that station the first chance to do so?

If you've seen the second season of The Mandalorian, Mando flies around for a while in a battered ship held together by some cables and temporary patches, and it rattles when he lands. Integrity is a bit like that. It won't make you blow up, but if you start to take damage, you're not going to last as long as you should. It takes quite a long time to occur, and it's the sort of thing you fix occasionally when you're at a starport. There's no way to fix it when you're out in the black AFAIK.

It's got its own separate slot next to the detailed repair interface, so some people forget about it and many newbies don't even know where to find it. There's a "Repair All" on the main interface at starports that fixes everything *except* integrity. If you're doing a lot of combat and dying, you're respawning in a new ship each time (it's an insurance claim), so you don't have to worry about integrity. Here's an old developer explanation.

Quote
So basically ship integrity is a hit point modifier that decreases the Y on the X out of Y (X/Y) on total hit points such as at 100% integrity and 50% hull you would be at 50/100 and at 0% integrity you would instead be at 50/70 assuming you were damaged before your integrity dropped and assuming you only had 100 hull hp to begin with.

(Edit: A ship built for exploration is squishy, like a caster in an MMO. Every component is engineered for low mass and maximum jump range, so it's useless in combat or a crash.)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on April 05, 2021, 04:29:40 PM
Ah cool, thanks.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on April 05, 2021, 05:49:53 PM
Ah, this makes me feel so good and yet so sad that I didn't do the same kind of thing. I really should have played this thing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 05, 2021, 07:02:44 PM
As said, it just makes you a little more fragile. Unless you PvP there's no combat out in the black, unless something has changed in the past year? And things like lithobraking and falling asleep in front of a star tend to kill you either way, so it's not a crippling debility. Probably the single biggest impact is it makes that first landing back in civilization that much scarier, trying to navigate the slot and avoid collisions with crazy pilots when you haven't done all that stuff in ages and now you're flying in what suddenly feels like an enormous eggshell.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 05, 2021, 08:04:14 PM
Unless you PvP there's no combat out in the black, unless something has changed in the past year?

The last time I died in Elite Dangerous was on the outward journey, to a PvP ganker at Sagittarius A*. Fortunately I'd just taken off from Explorer's Anchorage, which was brand new (Frontier implemented it for the expedition, with a community goal for the participants), so I respawned there instead of back in the bubble.

I had logged into Open to see other ships on the expedition. Messed around for a bit, decided to take a look at the Sag A* black hole, forgot I was still in Open, and bam... interdicted, defenceless, dead. Some well-known gankers made the journey out there, hoping to catch a few people who'd just flown 26,000 light years and hadn't landed yet. They got a few.

There was indeed a slow NPC ship in the slot when I tried to land this time. I'd done a few practice dockings on my alt account, so I reacted in time and slowed to his speed.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 06, 2021, 01:18:59 AM
For those enjoying reading about the exploration side of Elite Dangerous - many stories and visuals here: https://www.reddit.com/r/eliteexplorers/


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 07, 2021, 06:47:59 PM
Somebody found lots of alien plants growing on a moon (https://twitter.com/CMDR_Zulu_Romeo/status/1379850495230087168) in the Odyssey alpha (the upcoming Elite Dangerous on-foot expansion).

As for me, it turns out there's a Discord (https://discord.com/channels/628577403043840021/723766866207571968) where Fleet Carrier owners announce where and when they'll be travelling, for anyone who wants a ride. Apparently there are fewer at the moment due to the Odyssey alpha, so I either have to do 170 jumps to Colonia to meet up with a carrier departing for the bubble on April 20 (hit or miss due to my real life schedule), or wait for someone to announce a Sag A to bubble trip. At the moment I'm thinking Colonia.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 11, 2021, 12:24:18 AM
I'm trying to remember, is PvP enabled in private groups or only in Open?  I can't remember how the Fuel Rats handle the issue of being lured out by a ganker.  Seems like Carriers, and people hitching rides on them, will have the same issues?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on April 11, 2021, 05:32:16 AM
I'm trying to remember, is PvP enabled in private groups or only in Open?  I can't remember how the Fuel Rats handle the issue of being lured out by a ganker.  Seems like Carriers, and people hitching rides on them, will have the same issues?


PvP IS enabled in private groups. I'm in Mobius and they can't turn that off - only patrol, address PvP claims, and kick offenders out (which they do pretty quickly). I do believe they allow PvP in some limited form and only when parties agree - but it is frowned upon.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 11, 2021, 12:41:17 PM
I'm trying to remember, is PvP enabled in private groups or only in Open?  I can't remember how the Fuel Rats handle the issue of being lured out by a ganker.  Seems like Carriers, and people hitching rides on them, will have the same issues?


PvP IS enabled in private groups. I'm in Mobius and they can't turn that off - only patrol, address PvP claims, and kick offenders out (which they do pretty quickly). I do believe they allow PvP in some limited form and only when parties agree - but it is frowned upon.

Braben's initial refusal, then reluctant, grudging and incomplete "solutions" to PvP and griefing, combined with his premium pricing at release, are why I waited until years after release before buying it, on sale.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Setanta on April 11, 2021, 05:17:51 PM
I keep reading through this and wondering why I'm not playing it. Does it have auto dock/undock? I know that M/KB and trying this killed a game for me.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Rendakor on April 11, 2021, 05:22:22 PM
IIRC there's a thing you can buy that automates docking.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 11, 2021, 08:20:18 PM
I keep reading through this and wondering why I'm not playing it. Does it have auto dock/undock? I know that M/KB and trying this killed a game for me.

IIRC there's a thing you can buy that automates docking.

Yes, you can install a docking computer. You fly near to your desired landing point, request docking, gain approval, then slow down and the docking computer kicks in and performs the landing. Here's a video of someone doing it  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tafpGjLfIY)(the jerky mouselook is because the pilot is bored, looking around, because the computer is flying the ship). Here's another video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Bdn6q8dwo) (this one has an annoying wait in a queue, which is a downside of the docking computer at busy stations).

I understand newbies now get a docking computer in the starter ship (when I were a lad, dad just threw you in the water and said "swim"). When you then upgrade your ship you have to buy a docking computer for it if you want that function to continue. Being able to dock manually is a desirable skill for a player, however. You'll want to use that docking computer slot for another piece of equipment instead.

The docking computer plays The Blue Danube waltz (you can turn the music off), which was also the case in the original game in 1984, which was then a nod to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey which uses that in its first space station scene. One good thing about docking computers is they add no mass to a ship, which means if you've got the spare slots available, it's worth taking one on an exploration trip because it won't reduce your jump range and you'll be able to relax about the landing when you get back (unlike me in the posts above).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 11, 2021, 09:10:08 PM
I don't usually play in VR (I've got an Oculus Quest 1), but it was kind of cool looking out at my travel-damaged paintwork in VR.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 12, 2021, 10:26:23 AM
One thing I used to see people do is launch and then sit in the station without exiting as that would cause nothing to enter the station till you left. so any people using autodock would be stuck outside the station. Nyuk nyuk nyuk oh how evil.

You would get blown up after 10 minutes of waiting around, so they would exit after 9 minutes come back in and repeat. Ho ho. Ho.

What I used to do is just go through the letter box then hit autodock. Avoided that nonsense and saved time.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Khaldun on April 12, 2021, 03:22:16 PM
I literally have never been able to get out of the tutorial for launching smoothly in the game after hours so I think I'm just really a stupid gamer in some important respect.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 12, 2021, 04:19:40 PM
I literally have never been able to get out of the tutorial for launching smoothly in the game after hours so I think I'm just really a stupid gamer in some important respect.

I don't want to be one of those "convince you to waste your life on my game" people, but have you tried the new, new player experience? There's a newbie area now, rather than just a set of tutorials. You don't leave the newbie zone until you want to.

Edit: Here is the community's favourite vlogger ObsidianAnt on the New Player Experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXu_Bk4y0Ww


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on April 12, 2021, 05:24:40 PM
only 6 years into the game... let's make a starter area with tutorial modes! What a novel idea!  :why_so_serious:


But on a serious note, good for them for finally coming around and realizing that maybe the game could use some handholding stuff at the beginning instead of the stupidity that it was.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on April 12, 2021, 05:46:24 PM
For me, with M&K, the hardest part about manual docking is not hitting the boost key. I have no idea why, but that thing is like a magnet to my finger! I've never died or collided because of it (or from any other cause while docking/undocking for that matter - swapping a little paint with the sides of the mail slot on the other hand ... :grin: ) but there's been a couple close calls!  The next hardest part is being patient and not accumulating fines for zooming around too fast or too close to other ships.  Slowpokes!  If you don't like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk!

If you only play solo the jerks clogging the stations aren't there, right?  Yet another reason to avoid Open like the vermin infested cesspool it just might be (depending on time and place).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 13, 2021, 02:02:21 PM
Yes, Solo means a total lack of other people improving your gaming esperiance.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 13, 2021, 03:15:24 PM
I know that you’re being sarcastic but for the people not in the know, public means that you‘re probably being repeatedly murdered by a Cmdr Harry Potter in a tricked out Imperial Cutter while you’re trying to do community goals in your rusty space lemon.

Not my cup of tea so I’d always recommend either private group or solo.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 14, 2021, 09:42:50 PM
For those following along at home, I have made it to Colonia (second centre of humanity, still 22,000 light years from Sol) from my previous stop at Sagittarius A*.

To do this, I jumped 14,000 light years (more than 200 jumps for my ship) which was monotonous gameplay because I did nothing else. On my previous travels I was breaking this up by exploring the systems I passed through (at least a rudimentary scan, with further scans if there were financially worthy planets and moons). But this time I just needed to reach Centralis near Colonia before April 20 to meet up with a player-run fleet carrier 'Sleeper Service' (https://www.notion.so/Sleeper-Service-H2T-LHV-passenger-information-e9e09a8fbfb64cc292522c653d1ea6cb) that will save an additional 15,000 light years of travel, so all I did was jump, scoop fuel from a star, jump, scoop fuel from a star, jump....

Here are pictures of the carrier and details of the ride offered. I've got a few days now to mess around in the Colonia region before the carrier departs.

(https://i.imgur.com/usCjgzb.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/5olhfJz.jpg)

Quote
Sleeper Service (H2T-LHV) - CMDR JonSatriani
Shipyard and Outfitting available
Free to all commanders

Next scheduled trip - all times are UTC (in-game time)
Colonia -> Collection of Wonders -> Bubble | 20-21 April

Carrier remains in Centralis until departure
Tuesday 20 April, 07:00: departs Centralis non-stop to Collection of Wonders, ETA 14:00
Wednesday 21 April, 07:00: departs Collection of Wonders non-stop to LHS 2687, ETA 15:00

More information, including jump-by-jump route plans, is available here: https://www.notion.so/jonedwards/Sleeper-Service-H2T-LHV-passenger-information-e9e09a8fbfb64cc292522c653d1ea6cb

A shipyard and outfitting are installed, so each passenger may store up to 40 ships and spare modules up to your usual limit. Please note there are no other services as standard, so if you need to refuel, repair or rearm, please do so at a nearby station before departure.

Sleeper Service journeys are free and will always be free, but many kind and generous commanders offer to donate tritium as a thank-you for the service. This is gratefully received but in no way required for boarding. See passenger information notices for refuelling and donation opportunities.

The carrier jumps as efficiently as possible throughout my working day. I am not necessarily able to make timing or course adjustments. Every passenger is responsible for ensuring they are on board before the next jump. There are no jump alerts on Discord so please, if you leave the carrier between jumps, make sure you are back in plenty of time before pad lockdown.



Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 15, 2021, 04:40:16 PM
So when Odyssey hits Elite: Dangerous basically has almost all of the features in the production build that Star Citizen is still working on eight years into development.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 15, 2021, 06:08:28 PM
So when Odyssey hits Elite: Dangerous basically has almost all of the features in the production build that Star Citizen is still working on eight years into development.

It has always felt that way. After years of Elite being a standard-priced epic space trading, combat and exploration game with more than 40 ship types, landable planets and 400 billion star systems, Star Citizen was like "pay real money for each of a handful of ship types you can land pointlessly in our alpha featuring a handful of buggy star systems".

Frontier is a big company now. Trades as FDEV on the London Stock Exchange, 600 employees, and numerous product lines: Elite, Planet Coaster, Jurassic World Evolution, Planet Zoo, etc. There were at last count more than 100 devs working on the Odyssey expansion. The Odyssey alpha seems to be proceeding on schedule, too (phase 3 began today), which should really shame Cloud Imperium further.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Surlyboi on April 15, 2021, 08:27:48 PM
Fucking Sleeper Service. Banks would be proud.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 16, 2021, 08:12:39 AM
I could have been interested in Squadron 42, the single player story driven part of Star Citizen, which was supposed to be ready years ago, and has a real single player story which is something that Elite doesn't have. But we all knows how that went. I mean, we are talking about a game that they mocapped and had actors record their lones for 6 years ago. Some of them will be dead by the time it releases (ha ha sure).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 20, 2021, 01:17:42 AM
I'm currently being jumped through space, while docked inside the fleet carrier Sleeper Service (at 500 ly per jump instead of my own 64 ly). It's a two-day trip in real time... the player piloting the carrier is doing a jump every 21 minutes during his day job, and he'll log off at the end of his day. The "overnight" spot is a system known as Collection of Wonders, which has several cool sights to see. I've been there before, so I don't really care.

I'm mostly logged off, doing real life stuff while this is happening. Just decided to log on and hear the crew announcements inside the carrier, which are incredibly atmospheric. The sound and animation of the jumps, inside and outside, are something to behold. Put your headphones on and experience it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjZopjSUEno). (edit - actually, in the one I'm on, it's a woman's voice making the announcements, not a robot voice)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 21, 2021, 11:59:29 AM
I always mishear 'Frameshift Drive,' so in the middle of that with all the sounds for engines warming up and the hull shaking and the demons being whipped into pulling with all their might, I hear;

"Attention Carrier crew. Friendship Drive engaged."

And I just laughed out loud.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 21, 2021, 06:52:14 PM
I've made it back to the Bubble, cradle of humanity.

A note from our bus driver:

Quote
A huge thank you to all Sleeper Service passengers. If I'm counting right we had more than 40 commanders on board today. This honestly is the most fun I've had in Elite Dangerous.

We formed a community for a few days on Discord while he carried us through space. He'll do it all again next week.

I'm now in a position to play the content of the upcoming expansion, but in the meantime (after a bit of a break) I plan to work on building and engineering a PvE combat vessel or two. No plans to leave the Bubble ever again anytime soon.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on April 21, 2021, 07:00:17 PM
What made this trip more fun for him than his other ones?


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sir T on April 21, 2021, 07:06:35 PM
Probably this set of passangers actually talked to him and had a few laughs

I was very surprised to learn that Carriers appear to have no cockpit view. They couldn't even bolt on another ships cockpit so you could sit in your ship while it slowly penetrates the galactic Barrier? Bad form.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 21, 2021, 07:14:10 PM
What made this trip more fun for him than his other ones?

I think because he had far more passengers than ever before. Heaps of fleet carrier owners are busy playing the alpha for the expansion, so those of us stuck out in the black needing a ride home were concentrated into this one fleet carrier. In gaming terms, it's good use of a sandbox. He (we) created fun content and his Discord announcements were quality.

Quote
=== @💤Sleeper Service passengers announcement  ===

I hope you have all had the chance to enjoy the Collection of Wonders. In 30 minutes we will depart non-stop for the Bubble, with an ETA of 15:00.

For a jump-by-jump schedule for today's journey, please see here: https://www.notion.so/Colonia-Skaude-AA-A-h294-Collection-of-Wonders-LHS-2687-Bubble-2e4a479f4f6447cc9be9a2d4f05e9223

For other schedules, tourist information, forthcoming trips and more, please see the main Sleeper Service passenger information page here: https://www.notion.so/jonedwards/Sleeper-Service-H2T-LHV-passenger-information-e9e09a8fbfb64cc292522c653d1ea6cb

X - If you would prefer to not be pinged with travel updates, please react to this post with X and I will remove your "Sleeper Service passengers" server role.

=== Announcement ends ===


Quote
Quote
I'm so excited to be able to do things in the bubble for the first time in two years (been out at Beagle Point). My other ships must be rusty by now. This is like an actual long haul flight home.
On behalf of the crew I apologise that you have to remain in your ship. Brewer Corporation and their parent company FDev did not include on-foot amenities in their carrier specifications, and apparently have no intention of doing so. A complaint has been filed.

Quote
Welcome to the Bubble. We've reached our destination system, LHS 2867 - the home system of the Fleet Carrier Owners Club. We have arrived 20 minutes behind schedule, owing to a server error. I apologise for any inconvenience.
Quote
I’m reminded of the time I flew ANA to Japan and the checkout counter opened 10 minutes late. The entire staff came out to bow in apology. Perfection is a good standard to pursue, but doubt anyone else is bothered :laughing:

I work full time and have children; if I know I have 30 minutes to game in between RL things, I want reliable timetables!


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on April 21, 2021, 07:36:20 PM
Should have named the carrier Mr Bones' Wild Ride.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 21, 2021, 07:45:43 PM
One passenger wondered if we were actually going to end up in a space gulag. Another misunderstood that as goulash. International crowd...


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 22, 2021, 08:20:08 PM
Odyssey expansion to launch on May 19 (https://www.pcgamer.com/au/elite-dangerous-odyssey-lands-and-disembarks-on-may-19/).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 28, 2021, 07:49:39 AM
I have Elite and logged all of an hour of it. It just felt...overwhelming. Which is weird because I used to love Space Sim games like Wing Commander and such. I also got the feeling that if you want to be good you A) need a joystick or controller (I think I have some spare Xbox One controllers I could plug in?) and B) practically have to treat it like a 2nd job.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sky on April 28, 2021, 08:22:56 AM
Should have named the carrier Mr Bones' Wild Ride.  :why_so_serious:
steverogersgotthatreference.gif


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on April 28, 2021, 11:37:47 AM
I have Elite and logged all of an hour of it. It just felt...overwhelming. Which is weird because I used to love Space Sim games like Wing Commander and such. I also got the feeling that if you want to be good you A) need a joystick or controller (I think I have some spare Xbox One controllers I could plug in?) and B) practically have to treat it like a 2nd job.

Not really. Mouse and keyboard works great. It could be a matter of finding the right setup for you, which at this point in life could feel like a chore. But they work great, better than a controller for sure in my case.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 28, 2021, 10:17:54 PM
I have Elite and logged all of an hour of it. It just felt...overwhelming. Which is weird because I used to love Space Sim games like Wing Commander and such. I also got the feeling that if you want to be good you A) need a joystick or controller (I think I have some spare Xbox One controllers I could plug in?) and B) practically have to treat it like a 2nd job.

On a popular PvE tactics website they've devised an improved mouse and keyboard layout (https://sites.google.com/view/ed-pve-combat/misc/improved-kb-m-preset?authuser=0) you can download and tweak.

I've been using keyboard and mouse since I started. You definitely don't need a joystick or a controller. That said, now that I'm getting into PvE instead of exploration, I'm thinking of getting a cheap HOTAS.

To me, the reason Elite Dangerous feels overwhelming is that they've actually pulled off "you are just one human being in a giant galaxy". You have to choose your own paths. Unlike most sandboxes, you cannot be a completionist even if you make it your second job, so aim small.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Rendakor on April 29, 2021, 05:10:05 AM
I played it fine with a keyboard and mouse, but only put about 20 hours in. I didn't do a lot of combat, though.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: rattran on April 29, 2021, 06:26:21 AM
I did quite a bit of pirate hunting when I started as a way to make money, as I found mining horrible and tedious. Switched from my old hotas setup to keyboard and mouse, and found it overall better.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on April 29, 2021, 08:13:23 AM
BTW there's a New Pilots Initiative (https://inara.cz/squadron/5068/), a group that assigns you an in-game mentor to help with the learning curve.

Other famous player groups include the Fuel Rats (https://fuelrats.com/), a rescue refuelling service (you can run out if you are careless) whose motto is "we have fuel, you don't - any questions?". And the Hull Seals (https://hullseals.space/), who will fly to your location and do repairs if your ship has taken severe damage.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Count Nerfedalot on May 01, 2021, 06:25:06 PM
This is the keyboard layout I started with. I've tweaked a couple things, but it's mostly the same. I still have to keep the picture up on the other monitor while I'm playing though, I'm too old anymore to remember all that!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=478686362


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 03, 2021, 08:02:47 PM
The community's favourite YouTuber reviews the expansion alpha. Good video with honest thoughts. If you can't spare 15 minutes: "an average update with potential to be great" is his summary. "Feels like a freshly-laid foundation with just a functional house built on it, which isn't actually fully built yet". Best parts are apparently the new-look planets and seeing the sheer scale of the ships when you're on foot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5mp2qOZslE


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on May 03, 2021, 09:09:09 PM
OA needs to stop deepthroating his mic. This is the first time I've watched one of his video and I had to stop watching after a couple of minutes because of his abuse of the proximity effect.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 03, 2021, 09:15:44 PM
Haha. I like his radio voice. He gets $1/month from me on Patreon. (edit) He looks nothing like he sounds! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIUkiBxZrf8)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Trippy on May 03, 2021, 09:25:12 PM
Yeah I get why people do it but it's literally causing a low frequency rumble on my monitor speakers. He needs a high pass filter / bass rolloff on his mic / EQ setup and he'll still get the Howard Stern / "voice of god" effect, just not as rumbly for people who are listening on good speakers / headphones.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Sky on May 04, 2021, 08:16:49 AM
The irony of everyone being able to create is that few know the skills.

I'm rusty through disuse over the past 20 years, but we were taught in studio engineering school to test our mixing process through any setup we could get our hands on. On a field trip to one instructor's home studio, he showed us his 'listening room', which had a really sweet audiophile hifi setup. But he also had walkmans (walkmen?), boomboxes, cheap consumer electronics. Back then one of the most important places to check a mix was in a Honda Civic. If it can sound good on crap, the people can enjoy it.

But as you point out, it can also develop your ears to find problems that exist outside your personal studio setup.

I get a similar issue in Rocksmith CDLC with people who don't play bass and just slap a generic tone (usually with tons of distortion or the bass sliders cranked) on the bass track. On my system with a beefy sub, it will wake up the neighborhood with unintended bass waves.

Sorry to pursue the digression, pet peeve (one which I've probably committed many times due to my general level of laziness, and probably my young punk nature of wanting to make an audiophile's setup sound like a boom box had recorded the track live in a garage)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 14, 2021, 06:09:37 AM
Player-made music video from the Odyssey alpha (for an original song) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XY70zt79M4)... one player made the video, another player wrote the song and it's his daughter singing.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 14, 2021, 08:01:56 AM
I think you linked the wrong video


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 14, 2021, 08:17:48 AM
I linked the right video.

Edit: In fact, here's another one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8A3qsSi_Yc) - from the 2019 expedition I documented my return from in this thread. Another original song by the father and daughter (Tom Cook and Heli), with a different video maker.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 14, 2021, 08:42:27 AM
Those are really cool.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 18, 2021, 06:09:31 AM
OFFICIAL TRAILER: Elite Dangerous Odyssey (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAb3nH5Eilo&t=119s)

Releasing May 19 on PC.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: koro on May 22, 2021, 08:15:36 PM
Odyssey is an absolute shitshow. Do not under any circumstances buy this for at least a few months.

The new UI is a disaster and makes it much more difficult to do basic things quickly, like change out modules on your ship or even see what's currently equipped onto it. Performance varies wildly, even among systems with similar hardware. Crashes are super common. The rendering on planets is busted and atmospheric planets are being rendered like barren moons, which also removes buildings and tech that you're there to look for. Team play is also pretty busted, with unfixable desyncing being the norm, preventing you from seeing your group mates, not that it matters since team-based ground missions were disabled some time between announcement and release. And on top of it all, a lot of missions are bugged and try to send you from the bubble to Colonia, over 22,000 LY away. There's also bugs that are nuking your engineering materials, replacing them with only what you looted in the previous session, undoing hours of grinding.

Very disappointing. I was really excited for this but didn't keep myself in the loop on news about it, otherwise I'd have canceled my order for it when I saw that it was going from "Alpha" to "release" in the span of two weeks.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 22, 2021, 09:04:10 PM
I've managed to time a family holiday for Odyssey release week, so all I've done is watch YouTube videos and read reddit about the poor launch. The videos of Horizons (previous client) vs Odyssey show some horrible graphical bugs affecting shaders and lighting, especially inside space stations which used to be beautiful.

I did preorder however and I'm happy to have done so, because I've played the absolute shit out of this game and paid no subscription fee.

I understand you can still log into the Horizons client even if you own Odyssey. You select it from the launcher. This is because they're keeping people without the expansion separate from those with it, so the intention is that if you want to instance with someone who doesn't have Odyssey, you log into Horizons. Hopefully that can be used to get around the mess until they fix it.

It seemed pretty silly to go from an alpha to release on the PC because we're clearly now paying for a beta while they ready it for Playstation and Xbox.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on May 24, 2021, 05:25:50 AM
Anything in this universe capable of actually making elite dangerous' ship loadout interface worse and harder to navigate than it already was is unholy enough to deserves its own SCP entry


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 24, 2021, 08:03:17 AM
Got home from my holiday and played 2 hours of Odyssey in solo. It was.... absolutely fine?

I liked the tutorial. You log into the game as you normally would, but the Odyssey tutorial happens like a cutscene before your usual commander and ship loads. You run a first-person shooter type mission on a planet's surface, then an NPC flies you to another planet with good scenery, then you're back being your usual commander at wherever you left off.

I'm running a 3070 as an eGPU attached to a Dell XPS laptop. The ground game ran at about 40fps, dropping to 30fps occasionally. Space flight by comparison runs at 120fps and can go higher (I set a 120fps limit).

I had no crashes and no funky lighting or textures. Everything looked great, including the new planet terrain. Space seemed a bit too dark, but it was prettier than it used to be. I had one slowdown after talking to a mission giver on foot in a starport... everything dropped to about 10 fps until I talked to another mission giver. I was then restored to 30-40fps.

I flew to another starport and was disappointed to get the same starport layout when on foot. But it is extremely cool after all this time to walk away from your ship in the hangar, into the space station elevator, seeing the space traffic outside the window.

I've a lot more to try, but it feels like a complex first-person shooter-style ground game added to an already immense spaceflight game. The style of gameplay on the ground seems the same as in space: sandbox with missions to run, collecting materials for suit and weapon engineering, and doing exploration for rewards. I'm not particularly inspired to do that just yet, as I'm engineering my spaceships and equipping to do both PvE bounty hunting and Thargoid fighting. But it genuinely felt like I was playing an upgraded version of Elite Dangerous, with better graphics and more to do.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 24, 2021, 04:35:48 PM
"Review" of Odyssey by Elite Dangerous comedy YouTuber Yamiks. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtJjdCD8z8o) He used to be a hardcore Planetside 2 player. His normal attitude is to slam everything, which he does here, but it's also a commentary on the bad things that have happened with launch.

My take is that all this is leading to a Thargoid-fighting ground game. Because Odyssey is a Horizons-esque on-foot version of Elite Dangerous (i.e. original game plus engineering, with on-foot versions of PvE, PvP, exploration, trading, bounty hunting, etc). In the background to launch, the Thargoids have attacked again in space. Thargoid models have been found in the Odyssey client. There are existing Thargoid bases that feel like FPS shooter bases (until now we've driven around them in SRVs or flown into them in small ships). I think they're trying to get a fully functioning on-foot version of Elite Dangerous working alongside the space game, whereupon the Thargoids will invade on the ground as well as in space.

I also think the reason for Exobiology being the non-violent part of the ground game, featuring botany only, is that the insectoid Thargoids are all about plants. Their spaceships are organic and look like flowers. Their bases are similar plant-like technology. They grow plants on planet surfaces to refuel their ships. There has to be some kind of plan where the botany in Odyssey meets the Thargoid plant-based technology, perhaps as a way to fight them. Humanity probably loses and loses and loses, and then we figure out we can use the plants against them, and off we go harvesting alien plants that do different things. Either that or there's no method to Braben's madness, and I doubt that.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: 01101010 on May 24, 2021, 06:25:59 PM
"Review" of Odyssey by Elite Dangerous comedy YouTuber Yamiks. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtJjdCD8z8o) He used to be a hardcore Planetside 2 player. His normal attitude is to slam everything, which he does here, but it's also a commentary on the bad things that have happened with launch.

My take is that all this is leading to a Thargoid-fighting ground game. Because Odyssey is a Horizons-esque on-foot version of Elite Dangerous (i.e. original game plus engineering, with on-foot versions of PvE, PvP, exploration, trading, bounty hunting, etc). In the background to launch, the Thargoids have attacked again in space. Thargoid models have been found in the Odyssey client. There are existing Thargoid bases that feel like FPS shooter bases (until now we've driven around them in SRVs or flown into them in small ships). I think they're trying to get a fully functioning on-foot version of Elite Dangerous working alongside the space game, whereupon the Thargoids will invade on the ground as well as in space.

I also think the reason for Exobiology being the non-violent part of the ground game, featuring botany only, is that the insectoid Thargoids are all about plants. Their spaceships are organic and look like flowers. Their bases are similar plant-like technology. They grow plants on planet surfaces to refuel their ships. There has to be some kind of plan where the botany in Odyssey meets the Thargoid plant-based technology, perhaps as a way to fight them. Humanity probably loses and loses and loses, and then we figure out we can use the plants against them, and off we go harvesting alien plants that do different things. Either that or there's no method to Braben's madness, and I doubt that.

BOOOOOOOONG..... the Yamiks is still at it. He's a bit like OA, doesn't look like how he sounds.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 24, 2021, 07:55:48 PM
BOOOOOOOONG..... the Yamiks is still at it. He's a bit like OA, doesn't look like how he sounds.

Yamiks four days ago in one of his other videos. He's from Latvia.

(https://i.imgur.com/Wq9519h.png)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 24, 2021, 09:03:02 PM
A player who claims to be a graphics engineer did a thorough investigation into what's wrong with the rendering in Odyssey (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/nj1f5x/odyssey_renderer_is_broken_details/). Some pretty fundamental and obvious stuff slowing it down even on a 3090, but the investigator reckons it can be fixed.

Also, it turns out that Frontier's year end in their financial calendar is 31 May (https://www.frontier.co.uk/investors/financial-calendar). That's why this thing had an inflexible ship date.

There are many people having good experiences, posting awesome screenshots of how the planets look now (in addition to a few bugged-looking screenshots). There's a thread. (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/the-great-big-odyssey-screenshots-thread.568114/page-107)


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: koro on May 25, 2021, 05:59:40 AM
Today's hotfix fixed most of my problems I've been having with Odyssey. Some tweaks to the module management UI and fixing the awful multiplayer desync and I'll be happy.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 25, 2021, 02:47:32 PM
Performance being bad on planets is only a minor gripe in the face of how poor many planets look compared to the old ones.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on May 25, 2021, 10:03:35 PM
Performance being bad on planets is only a minor gripe in the face of how poor many planets look compared to the old ones.

In two play sessions (admittedly limited experience) I've only seen amazing new-look planets. Seems to me the terrible-looking ones I've seen in screenshots are a texture bug that needs fixed, perhaps only on certain hardware.

If some people are enjoying this:

(https://i.imgur.com/smn3Egz.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/vrTHLIc.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/O2UmBUg.jpg)

And others are complaining that it's like this:

(https://i.imgur.com/x0e5PvY.jpg)

There's clearly not a lack of new planetary rendering capability, but a mismatch between different hardware or different planets, leading to a fix relatively soon.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on May 26, 2021, 12:19:52 AM
This is the video that worried me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WftxpkiPeL4

It makes a lot of valid point and supports them with evidence. If they are bugs, then great! I am an Elite Dangerous supporter.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on May 28, 2021, 10:41:38 AM
Interesting bug, heh: space-legs lobby seems to have detached from the station.  Reddit post with screenshot (https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/nmx0lq/see_you_later_station/).

May be related to the recent bug where stations began drifting out of their orbit point, which they turned into a news blurb (https://community.elitedangerous.com/galnet/uid/60abaf258d48bc080f0fd4a4).


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on July 12, 2021, 02:25:12 PM
David Braben announces that Odyssey (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/odyssey-going-forwards.585652/) will now be delayed on Xbox and Playstation while they fix it on PC. Ominously, he gives no dates whatsoever.

Quote
... we have spent a lot of time discussing and re-evaluating our previous plans and we have made the decision to prioritise the core PC experience for Elite Dangerous. Ultimately, we believe it is right to focus our efforts on the core Elite Dangerous Odyssey experience for the platforms that we have released on, before opening up to more. We know that the work that we do to improve players’ experiences of Elite Dangerous Odyssey on PC will benefit other platforms in the future, but the dates and details of the console platforms are going to change. We do not want to rush into confirming any dates or changes this has on our console release, as we must remain fully focused on the core Elite experience. Only when we feel that the foundation of the PC release is solid, will we be able to re-lay our console roadmap on top.

I haven't been playing. My experience in Odyssey hasn't been terrible, but I didn't find it compelling. It offers a huge timesink to gather materials to get engineers to upgrade your on-foot combat gear, and I'd rather be doing spaceship stuff. I'll be back - I even bought an X52 HOTAS in an ebay sale.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Samprimary on July 20, 2021, 10:33:39 AM
i'm sort of assuming that the work on E:D is pretty much wrapping up and there won't be much new content

and that's a shame because the only other offering provides a grand total of 5 hours of new content every 6 months


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 24, 2022, 10:11:40 PM
Catching up this thread, because last night I played some Elite Dangerous for the first time in many months. I also still listen to a weekly podcast called Lave Radio about the game and its community.

After six months of silence, they ended development on consoles. You can still play on Playstation and Xbox (up to the Horizons expansion), but they won't be releasing the Odyssey expansion for those because they just couldn't make it work. They now want to "move the story forward" now and will do so only on PC. It's been a total fuckup, but consoles are only 20% of the player base.

The community is pretty sure that what "move the story forward" means is ground combat with the Thargoids (the enemy alien race in Elite games since 1984). We've only ever seen Thargoid spaceships, but Odyssey introduced on-foot ground combat on planetary surfaces between humans (it's basically a first-person shooter added to a spaceflight simulator). They've pretty much refined the ground combat game and stabilised Odyssey on PC, and humans vs humans seems a bit vacuous when there's an alien race out there.

This potentially huge war is likely the last blast of major Elite Dangerous content and it could get very interesting... but only on PC.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: satael on March 25, 2022, 01:24:38 AM
I was (foolishly) hoping for pretty much exactly the opposite, that they'd announce Odyssey for PS5 and that it would have full support for the upcoming VR.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Falconeer on March 25, 2022, 02:14:07 AM
I was hoping for the opposite too: less ground combat and more space shipping. I'd be fine with ship interiors as a bonus but focusing on the FPS? God please no.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on March 25, 2022, 03:07:51 AM
I kind of agree, because Odyssey is ridiculous. It played to the opposite of Elite Dangerous's strengths. I wish they'd added the Andromeda galaxy (which is prominent in the Elite Dangerous sky and thought to be the Thargoids' home) and made more space sim instead of adding a FPS.

But the existing Thargoid planetary bases are really something (the ones that look like crashed motherships). I am interested in being part of a ground war in environments like that. If they involve ships in air-ground combat, that would make it cooler. They've already got the Thargoid air cover in the game, so you shouldn't need to get out of your ship if you don't want to.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on August 10, 2022, 11:36:51 PM
A very big thing happened in Elite. A long plot leading to an attempt to genocide the Thargoids (the aliens at war with humanity) has ended with a cutscene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0MFmREngXM

The big question is: what's the sound at the end of the video? School of thought says it's a Thargoid mothership (said to be massive, never seen before).

The anomaly left on a planet by these events remains in the game and visitable. Anti-Thargoid weapons do not function there, and the Thargoid ships are more aggressive now. I haven't played for months, so I don't really know any more.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: ajax34i on August 11, 2022, 05:06:51 PM
Guardian weapons take constant damage in the solar system where the event occurred, basically the best anti-Thargoid weapons and defenses we had will be destroyed in-system within a couple minutes of flying around.

There's an unannounced community goal (quest) where if you take Guardian weapon tech (http://remlok-industries.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ED-Ancient-Relic.jpg) to a Thargoid base (not the one at the event) and plug it in, the technology gets corrupted (https://preview.redd.it/reqrraqn0qg91.png?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=0493847b699c20513f7f1ee3d73b84c0d256f808), with several of the lore NPCs paying money for the players to then bring them this infected technology for analysis.

There's also possibly a trail of clues (https://preview.redd.it/vmfsdlafh2h91.jpg?width=698&auto=webp&s=4ee272356c57941f584e9a9113448c80bf2e5b82) that may progress the story.

As far as the sound at the end, or other audio bits in the messages, the devs are notorious for hiding clues within the frequency of audio (https://imgur.com/LtEPLPt), to be discovered by applying an audio spectrum analyzer to the sound file.


Title: Re: Elite: Dangerous
Post by: Tale on January 10, 2024, 03:19:32 PM
Very good fan-made trailer (3 minutes) from 10 years of Elite: Dangerous, from space exploration up to the war with the Thargoids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99FMBNn1jZU

One of those live-vicariously-through videos for people who don't want to spend a decade in a sandbox. I fell away from it after the Odyssey expansion launch, but I still listen weekly to the Lave Radio podcast to keep up with the very worthwhile community.