Dr Wookie

There is a very interesting Polygon article discussing efforts to avoid trap builds here: http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/25/8284763/how-pillars-of-eternity-rewrites-the-rules-for-role-playing In addition to generalising stats so Might affects damage output, Intellect governs duration and AoE for effects etc., you can simply hire any type of person you want (starting one level below you). If you choose the option to hire help at the inn (the only example I have found so far), you get to create the whole character. I am playing as a Moon Godlike ginormous female Monk. Monks have a cool system where special abilities are sourced from the wounds that you sustain. As well as spending wounds per attack, I have a passive effect that buffs my attacks by an amount proportional to the number of wounds I have. Chosing armour (if any) is a balancing act between survivability in a particular fight, and getting sufficient wounds to unleash your potential. When I do have wounds, do I spend them on a single powerful attack, or use them to strengthen my normal hits? And of course, taking wounds means losing health that can only really be regenarated via resting. I had a very tense time in the first real dungeon where I didn't have any camping materials, and as went deeper in, the health bars of everyone in the party were in the red, meaning I might actually have got them killed (maybe? I don't know). This was especially intense since my main character works best when she's being hit! I am really enjoying the writing, and look forward to getting to know how this world works. I have some sort of guide book as part of my Kickstarter reward, but I won't really look at it until I finish the game.

I just got in... Woohoo! Sounds lovely

I'm also really excited about it. I backed on the final day of the Kickstarter, watching the last hour or so of the livestream as the timer counted down to zero. I really enjoyed Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, finished 1 with an asymmetric fighter thief, but choked at the end of BH 2 because of the insane magic battle near the end; I never got to grips with the hundreds of spells, not having a manual. I largely forgot about PoE over the last year or so, ignoring updates to keep things fresh for release, but now I have the game preloaded and am ready to get my party started ! I'm thinking of going with a monk or cypher, but I'll probably spend ages reading up on the options in character creation first. I may just skip work tomorrow

Yeah, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the X55; my only experience with HOTAS is the X52 and X52 Pro when volunteering to demo Elite at E3 and PAX East. I'm a lefty, so the set-up is pretty awkward for me, but I might look into using two joysticks, as others have done. The 360 gamepad has been fine so far, but if I go into PvP I imagine HOTAS would be superior.

I rented Enslaved for 360, and played it all the way through, love that game. I also got the PC port in a Steam sale, and it still looks great. The gameplay is a bit dated, but I enjoy it. I was well impressed when I found out that one of my friends works at Ninja Theory

The Type 6 is is good at hauling cargo, and is surprisingly fast and nimble; it's also pretty decent for exploring. If you do a rare run from the Old Worlds for example (Lave, Diso, Leesti, Orrerre, Uszaa [sp?], Zaonce) then you can often get more rares than the Cobra can hold, making the Type 6 good for this. Prior to the Wings update, I would say you could probably outrun most trouble in a Type 6 with A grade boosters and power distribution, now I'm not so sure. Safe places seem to have lower margins than dangerous ones, so you could probably make as much trading in the outer rim in a Cobra as you could cozily in a Type 6. The Asp is a no-brainer, unless you're really into combat; I hear similar things about the Python.

I'm back in my Asp (named after the snake, not an acronym). Even though I liked the Type 7 (the cockpit is amazingly cavernous), I felt too uncomfortable when flying it. My do-it-all Asp has 104 ton capacity, but can jump up to 30 ly, has 4 gimballed multicannons and 2 gimbled beams, has an advanced discovery scanner and a detailed surface scanner. The 3A fuel scoop is fairly nifty too (but nothing like the 6B monster). It is in every way an upgrade over the Type 6, but cost way more . The Asp isn't really a combat ship, although it can often hold its own... if you want to go into a war zone, then a Vulture is probably a better bet.

I played Valiant Hearts around the same time as a number of other heavily story driven games (To the Moon was one of them, and I forget the others). I felt that Valiant Hearts was too much game in some ways; I really love the story and presentation, and simply felt annoyed at some of the gameplay sequences. I also found the depiction of the leader odd, given the very sympathetic and human treatment of soldiers on both sides in other parts of the game. Then again, the higher ups on the Allied side aren't exactly drawn in a favourable way when you meet them. It might be a symbol of the madness of those controling the war, while the ordinary people on both sides suffer. If you have any interest in the story, I suggest that you do as I did, and consult a FAQ when it gets to the annoying bits... I was glad that I didn't give up, since the end is very powerful

Ooh, Lugh is over? I'll have to find out which side won! Congrats on the Asp, it's my favourite ship so far; I maxed it out to my liking as an all-rounder for about 23 million, but I do have access to the Founders' World thanks to my Kickstarter pledge. I've not put any armour on it though. I also did an explorer configuration which was more expensive thanks to the giant fuel scoop I used. It's not something I would use in general since it loses 64 tons of cargo, so I am glad that buyback for equipment is 100% cost (crazy). Right now I'm in a Lakon Type 7, just to try it out while I'm getting enough Imperial reputation to get the Clipper. It can carry about twice as much as my Asp, but is so much slower, shorter range, and vulnerable that I think I'm going to switch back. It would be fine in a wing, but I'm usually pretty anti-social . Also there's the fact that Asps can use medium pads, meaning that they can land on outposts.

The temperature thing has been rejigged, so that damage starts occurring at 100% heat (mostly to modules), with hull damage only at very high heat... the temperature gauge has now been split into three regions because of this. Since damage started at 150% in the old system! you need to multiply by 1.5 to get the old heat. That number of jumps thing is a great new addition, while interdiction does seem to be down on 1.1, which was at a very high rate. I'm currently on my first big expedition, having converted my asp to full explorer mode with a 6B fuel scoop that cost more than my ship, but gulps 752 per second! I'm off to see the Crab Pulsar, around 7000 ly from where I started, and am currently 5000 ly from where I left off... The whole journey will probably take ~20 hr or so, and is a nice change of pace. It's me against the galaxy now, trying to plot a course where a) there are enough stars to get me where I'm going, and I can refuel every 200 ly or so. Every now and then I get too friendly with a star, and my modules are suffering a bit. I have a field repair module, but that may dry up and I may have to end up canibalising non-vital modules to keep me going (another new feature). This s very much podcast play, but I like that I can progress in big chunks or just a few minutes. There's been no sign of life for hours, no discovered by tags, and part of me wants to keep going after the crab Pulsar... It's weirdly awesome

Oh yeah, monday morning maths !

I think that this is a situation where mean average is misleading... if you divide the amount raised by the number of backers then you certainly get around $1000 (scary!) [EDIT No you don't I messed up maths, but it's Monday, what's a factor of ten anyway?] but I think that the actual distribution leans towards a small percentage of players who have invested A LOT! I'm in for $45, and nothing will change that . Also, we have to hope that many more people will buy SC on release than have backed it so far (even though there already are a heck of a lot of backers). So I hope that SC will be scalable so that many more than the hardest core can enjoy it. This means there has to be more than fancy graphics, because I played Arena Commander with a GTX 660 before moving to a 970, and it wasn't particularly impressive One thing that makes me very uncomfortable about Star Citizen is that CIG seem to be quite happy expanding the scope of the game before release, when the cost is shouldered by the backers.

I grabbed one of the last alpha packages for Star Citizen about a year ago, and have drawn similar conclusions to you based on earlier versions of Arena Commander. I can't have played much more than an hour in total, but I really hope this is just because I'm not into arena based shooters. It's telling that the most fun I had was during one of the "every ship is available to backers" weeks, when I took one of the dedicated racers for a spin around the race tracks. Apparently the FPS test module will be available in the next couple of weeks, but I think that I'll give that a miss too. I'm holding out for the story campaign and persistent universe . I found the demo of the new procedural damage model impressive... and it's good news that it is actually more efficient than the old one. I doubt we'll ever see anything like that in Elite, because the triangle is one of the strongest shapes in nature ! I remain highly concerned about the emphasis on mega-ultra high-poly models and corresponding textures, because they are expensive to create and use, and won't be shown off to the best effect for 99.9% of the time. The Order: 1886 mast have spent a huge amount of time and money creating its (incredibly beautiful) assets, and it appears that the rest of the game suffered as a result... and in this game, the developers were able to make sure that you bathed in every glorious pixel, rather than flying past at hundreds of miles per hour many miles away.

When you start the game, you already have information on the planets, stars etc in a few systems, but the vast majority (>99.99999%) are marked by your ship's computer as unexplored. It is possible to buy this information for some systems, but usually you have to travel to that system and find out for yourself what is in it.If you perform scans of unexplored systems, you can sell the data so long as you're >20 ly from the system you scanned, by going to the Universal Cartographics section of a station menu. If you are the first person to ever scan that data and sell it, then you get "First Discovered By" credit in the game forever, and a 50% bonus on the data you sell. You can search for planets, rings and moons in a system using a discovery scanner, which is assigned to a fire group so you can do it as many times as you like as you fly around a system. The basic scanner detects everything within 500 ls, the advanced scanner detects everything full stop, and the intermediate scanner is something in between (1500 ls I think). However, it is often possible to identify planets by eye even when the detector can't get them (if they move relative to the background stars as you fly along), so you can get them by flying into range. You make detailed scans by flying to a star or planet then targeting it; if you are close enough the the scan will start. Buying a detailed surface scanner gets you extra information that can get you bonus credits. One of the key skills to develop when exploring for profit, rather than fun, is to judge whether or not it's worth taking the time to make detailed scans of the things you find. Things like M dwarves and icy worlds are not worth much, but black hole, earth-like worlds and metal-rich worlds are worth far more. If you look at the system map after doing the discovery scan then you can tell from the rough pictures of the stars and planets what kind they are. On the most basic level, exploration gives you extra pocket money as you move between stars that are more than a few jumps apart, but you can spend hours or days flying away from civilization, seeing what's out there then coming back a different route in order to sell the info.

Nice work The thing I love about the outfitting system is that you can benefit from the upgrades while saving up for the next ship... by the time you max out one ship, you should easily be able to afford the next step up. So I definitely recommend upgrading the adder before getting a cobra

Welcome aboard ! If you fancy joining a PVE group, try MOBIUS- it has >5000 members, and players will not attack you unless you are on the opposite side ina conflict zone. You can have a fair stab at any profession in any ship, although some will be much more successful than others. Your best bet starting out might be to find some courier missions from the bulletin board if you can... these offer pure profit so long as you complete them in time (missions are in real time so can expire while you're logged out if you're not careful). Stick a fuel scoop in your sidewinder and (maybe) upgrade your frameshift drive then you're good to go exploring. As with any of the professions, upgraded ships and equipment will give you better returns, but there's nothing to stop you dipping your toe in. And with the newly added external camera, you can make some VERY pretty pictures . Frontier have just put out a video that demonstrates the Wings mechanics And Scott Manley gives a very nice overview of some of the other features available in 1.2

Elite Dangerous 1.2 (Wings update) went to servers today, adding the aforementioned wings mechanic, a communications overhaul, two new ships (Fer de Lance and Vulture), and a debug camera for views outside the ship... complete changelog is here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=123776 My favourite comment: "Remove a spurious "Is Critical" flag from docking computer modules, you can no longer kill a ship by tickling one with a laser"

Yeah, the crowd was stoked! I would say that at least 90% of the people had never heard of the game before seeing it at the show, but they still queued for an hour anyway. The queue went all the way round the booth, sometimes lapping itself Probably the most frequently asked questions were "when's it coming out?" followed by pleasant surprise that it is in fact already out, and "how much are those sticks?" . We were using Saitek X52 Pros (about $200).

PC Gamer did an interesting interview with Chris Roberts during PAX He seems rather more grounded now and I am definitely on board with his new goal (9 minutes in): "I think we'll make a good game"

Damn! I passed the Indie Mini Bar several times, and thought it referred to that whole block. Oops! You might have seen me hovering near by on Sunday afternoon: I'm 6'6" and was wearing an Elite Dangerous Ambassador shirt Not including set-up and take down, I was on from 9 til 7 on Friday, then 10 til 6 on Saturday and Sunday. I also got into the Harmonix party which was fun, even though it meant I got even less sleep .

Hey Razor, I don't think that's quite right.... the community goals, and other bits of background simulation are just accumulations of numbers at the most basic level. For example, the community goals I have participated in have involved trading goods to a particular station, or selling exploration to a station; I think combat ones are determined by the amount of combat vouchers cashed in from a specific station too. These goals are very basic at the moment . The volume of transactions matters rather than the value of each transaction: when building the starport, I got the same credit for selling 1 ton of silver as I did for 1 ton of gold. Hence, even if the values of the transactions differed across versions, the volume contributions would be the same. Did that make sense? I hope so! Having unsynched patches would only prevent cross-platform instances as far as I understand it. I seem to remember the devs saying that you could use the same commander for the pc version and Mac version. Pax was amazing, though my feet are now killing me, and I now have no upper register in my vocal range... it's really wierd! I had less than an hour's free roam of the PAX floor thanks to the constant flow of people throughout all three days, but I saw enough that I really want to attend PAX properly some time!

Hey Dino, I went looking for you in the 20 minutes I was able to get away from our booth on Sunday, but couldn't find you, sorry! I didn't see 10203 anywhere on the plan, or bitSmith in the directory, so I guess you guys were pretty late editions. However I was stoked that I got to chat with Samantha Kallman and Dave Lang about Paxamania on Saturday before the event, and I finally found out what Sentris was, having heard about it on Giant Bomb... It was the only game I got to play other than Elite,and sitting down was fantastic . It was a fantastic experience, but totally draining, and the atmosphere was amazing. I would love to go as an attendee sometime

David Braben has confirmed that ED is also coming to PS4 after a period of exclusivity on XBone! Also, ED won the audience choice at GDC Day 1 of PAX was amazing, and brutal... I'm looking forward to Day 2 now

Yeah, by the time we left last night we had 8 pcs up and running, all with X52 pros, and 4 DK2s . I woke up at 4 am this morning (day 1) due to excitement (and maybe alcohol) !

This is from the Frontier forums, from CEO David Braben "Hi everyone, When asked, I’ve said we’d be mad not to consider bringing Elite: Dangerous to console. Well, that madness is about to end! Today we’re announcing that we will be bringing the full Elite: Dangerous to Xbox One this year. Xbox players have supported Frontier well over the years, and thanks to games like Zoo Tycoon and ScreamRide we know the hardware well, so Xbox One is a natural fit for Elite: Dangerous’ console debut. Elite: Dangerous on Xbox One will be the complete and authentic Elite: Dangerous experience. It will not be "dumbed down". We’ll be working with an all-new audience, but that doesn’t mean a change in direction for the game, and nor does it mean slowing development on the PC version. The second of our updates – Wings – is being beta tested by some of you right now, and the third will be coming in the spring, free of charge. We’ll be talking more about the third major update – Powerplay – soon! More players across more formats means we can devote more resources to development. The more players we have, the better the game will become. Elite: Dangerous is a living game and it will keep growing on all our formats so long as people are excited to play it. I’m also pleased to announce PC, Mac and Xbox One players will all share the same overarching narrative and galaxy state. That means even more players contributing to the wars, power struggles and Community Goals across the galaxy. If you want to keep up to date on our Xbox One release you can sign up to be kept informed at http://www.elitedangerous.com/xboxone . With the new Mac and Xbox One players joining us we’ll see new faces on the forums and we hope you’ll make them feel welcome. The Elite: Dangerous community has always been strong, and I’m sure it’ll be even stronger the more it grows. Thanks for playing, and Right On, Commanders. David" The more the merrier, I say! In other news, many of the digital rewards from the Mercenary pack and Kickstarter are now available... just go to store.elitedangerous.com, log in and go to the My Downloadable Products bit. The artbook is still in production, but there are ringtones, themes, wallpapers etc for mercenary edition commanders, and copies of the official sound track and the novel by Michael Brooks for those who pledged to the right level. In other, other news ED 1.2 has gone into beta this week, and should be available next week for everyone. The headline feature is the "wings" grouping mechanic, but another really cool feature is the "debug camera" that is probably a stand in for a drone cam... when in this mode, you lose control of the ship so there's no combat advantage. Here are a couple of pics I took for a taster (not replicating those in the screenshots thread)