Elite: Dangerous

[Falconeer]

 

[Ironwood]

And how does one do that ?

[Pagz]

[Falconeer]

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.

[apocrypha]

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. 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 :)

[Simond]

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

[Falconeer]

Blue Danube included  

That's really classy, and such a nice gift to the fans.

[Malakili]

So pretty.

[Jeff Kelly]

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.

[apocrypha]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ah3bZFTRo

You see all the debris in the station? Proof of how skilled the AI is at docking 

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! 

[apocrypha]

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 :)

[Pennilenko]

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.

[DraconianOne]

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.

[Falconeer]

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.

[DraconianOne]

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.)

[apocrypha]

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 - simple & fast, very reliable.
Slopey's 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.

[Jeff Kelly]

As it stands I might not be able to play Elite on my computer. At least not without a severe impact on picture quality. 

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.

[DraconianOne]

Trading Query - simple & fast, very reliable.
Slopey's 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.



 

Been away for a few days but hoping to get some time to play properly.

[Pennilenko]

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.

[apocrypha]

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) and it seems pretty accurate. Does occasionally crash the E:D client though.

[DraconianOne]

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).



If you look at the handle of the plough and go up and left, you can see Theta Bootis (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

[apocrypha]

 

[Falconeer]

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.

[apocrypha]

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.

[apocrypha]

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. 

[Khaldun]

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.

[apocrypha]

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.

[Pennilenko]

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.

[apocrypha]

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.

[DraconianOne]

Along with "Playing solo is so unfair because it lets people level until they get to endgame before joining MP again."


 

[Falconeer]

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.

[Pennilenko]

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.

[apocrypha]

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.

[Falconeer]

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.

[apocrypha]

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.