Dr Wookie
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Posts posted by Dr Wookie
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I'm mostly interested in the single player campaign, so it will be great to finally get my hands on that this fall... I got one of the last few thousand alpha packages, but am really not into the Arena Commander portion of Star Citizen, since competitive shooters aren't really my thing. I'm surprised to see that parts of the MMO bit should be out by the end of this year... having all of those commanders in such a small space will give a completely different feel to Elite Dangerous
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OK, having watched that 17 minute demo, I'm now screwing my eyes up and plugging my ears for any further coverage (good luck getting me to buy into Firewatch week, IGN)! It seems like the radio banter will be a key driver of the game, and what I heard was marvellous, but I don't want to spoil any more of it though. Any idea when it's coming out?
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GREAT NEWS... 1.2 UNLOCKS DEBUG CAMERA FOR PLAYERS!
For a LOONG time players have been badgering the developers for the ability to take screenies outside our ships such as the one below... Now we will have limited access to external views like this one
WINGS HUD
The latest newsletter has given a peek at the HUD for the wings... player will be light blue, with quick and easy info to hull and shields of all your buddies
ED 1.2 will be available for beta testing tuesday next week, with access to everyone hopefully a week later
PAX EAST
I've been chosen to be one of three player ambassadors for ED at PAX East, so come over and say hi! It looks like we're on the way to the Indie Megabooth.
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I've been chosen as a player ambassador for Elite Dangerous (one of three), so I'll be demoing that. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to look around a bit, because this will be my first PAX even though I've lived just over the river from Boston for the last 5 years... timings never worked out before as there was always a NASA proposal deadline around then.
You may have heard that it's been incredibly snowy in Boston this year... we've had over 100 inches of snow, beating the previous 30 day record by over 3 feet; a few more inches and it's the snowiest on record. There are a few possible extra snow storms coming up on Sunday evening and Wednesday (mixed with rain). The public transport has been massively impacted, and you should definitely take that into account. It has also been one of the coldest winters on record too, so bring plenty of layers.
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This week's newsletter isn't as action packed as some of the previous ones, since the main thing is reiterating the stuff about wings already shown in PC Gamer. It does have a screeny of the cockpit for the Vulture which is coming in 1.2... I'm not entirely sure what this ship is to be honest, but it looks like a biggy! Apparently it's goinf to be a heavy fighter with 2 large hard points and 4 utility point, and be rubbish at everything that isn't fighting (according to designer Mike Evans)
NAME A SPACE STATION
The first community-sourced space station is now being built in the system formerly known as HIP 101110, now called New Yembo. In order to commemorate this, the community has the opportunity to name the station. You can suggest a name here: http://elitedangerous.com/namethestarport . The name will be chosen by Frontier staff after the call for proposals is shut down on 2nd March. The first stage is in the system right now, I visited it yesteday
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I listened to the whole thing over a week or so during our wonderful New England snow storms. At first I didn't realise that this was based on a true case, not really knowing anything about it.
As a scientist, the way that the prosecution handled its evidence drove me nuts, particularly the cherry-picking of a few cell phone call records that happened to support their case, when there were plenty more that didn't. It sounds like this is commonplace, because someone (a detective I think) said they were more interested in building a case than finding the truth... this is outrageous to me.
If we presume innocence until proven otherwise, and that people might not tell the truth in the witness stand (shocking I know), then based on the evidence Jay is at least as likely to be the murderer as Adnan. He freely admits to helping bury the body and led the cops to the car, and admitted lying to the police.
If the case for the defence rests on a butt dial, then I know that I've butt-dialed at least a few more people than I've murdered
.It seems unlikely that Adnan will ever be proven innocent, and he could well be guilty, but I have to agree that the prosecution fucked up, and he should have been aquitted based on their case
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The value of cartographic data depends on the number of bodies scanned, and the importance of those bodies. Ice worlds and M stars are plentiful and low value, O stars, black holes, Earth-like planets, etc are far more valuable. However, when you start exploration data is more of an added bonus as you journey between systems, because the equipment needed to make serious money is expensive.
One thing you might like to try for a bit of a boost is to go to the Old Systems (Lave, Leesti, Diso), pick up 4 tons of rare items (these are yellow and include Diso Ma Corn, Lavian Brandy, Azure Milk and Leestian Evil juice). Then take them to another populated system about 150 ly away. These will give you a profit of about 15,000 per ton even when the original price is about 300 cr (which I think Diso Ma Corn is). You will probably have to go through a lot of systems meaning that you are likely to get a bit of cash from the exploration data too.
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PC Gamer got another exclusive, this time looking at the Wings update in 1.2 due in the first week of March (same week as PAX East, coincidence?). The whole thing is here http://www.pcgamer.com/elite-dangerous-12-preview-flying-together-with-wings/
Wings will allow up to four players to act as a single unit, with info on shield and hull statuses, targets etc of wingmen on your HUD. While every player is autonomous, they can lock onto any other member of the wing and automatically enter and exit supercruise when they do. Players can share bounties, and more dangerous scenarios will be popping up. You can enter or leave a wing at any time, and can split up in different systems..... if you need help your wingmen will see and might be able to jump in and help you.
This all sounds pretty tasty to me
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I just finished Brothers- A Tale of Two Sons today, in one sitting. I wasn't intending to go through it in one go, but just had to keep going, despite getting more and more hungry
! Steam says it took 3.3 hours. This is one of those games that is short, but still feels a good length... the gameplay is centred on using the left hand to control the older brother, and the right hand to control the younger brother, and a longer game could have been tiresome. Instead, there was a good variety of puzzles, even if they sometimes ignored the laws of physics. I found the story very moving, despite having one of the most poignant parts spoiled in a game of the year discussion podcast. Also, I appreciate the fact that none of the game's achievements are anything to do with the story, but instead are awarded for messing around with the game world.Some areas are a kinda bland to look at, but others are spectacular... and the game thoughfully provides benches so you can admire the views.
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Woohoo! Good on ya! Those sweet explorer credits will fall into your lap now!
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There's some interesting stuff in this week's newsletter
MERCENARY EDITION GOODIES
Everyone who preoredered will get some 4K desktop wallpaper and ringtones selected by the design team, along with a digitally signed screenshot (huh?) and an art book with with words by Art Director Chris Gregory.
FER-DE-LANCE IN 1.2 (EARLY MARCH)
The other cool thing is this teaser of the Fer-de-Lance ship that will appear in the next update... it's the return of a classic ship, with a somewhat revised form. In the good old days it was a luxury bounty hunter craft... maybe it still is?
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Welcome! There's a LOT to take in, so try not to do it all at once! The in game tutorials are a good place to start, i.e. the interactive bits and the videos. You can access the videos directly at
. The good news is that actually flying around and doing stuff is easy when you get used to it, but there's a whole bunch of info to take in first. The launcher gives you a link to the current manual which helps a bit.While you're getting started, I recommend taking courier missions from the Bulletin Board... these will give you free money as long as you do them in the (pretty generous) time limits, and will get you used to flying around between systems. If Open play is too daunting, then you can either play in Solo mode or in a private group (the MOBIUS group is a PvE group with over 4000 members and could be a good place to start). As you go between systems you could check out the type of system it is, see what is in high supply or high demand to get a feel for how trading works (buy at places with high supply, sell at places with high demand, the description of each commodity tells you which types of systems produce and consume it).
If you're feeling feisty, you can try shooting up wanted criminals at Nav Points, or Resource Extraction Points. Piracy could be something you want to try later on (no judging) but that needs stuff you won't be able to buy yet to do well. You can practice combat in the some of the tutorials, with some extra stuff in the single player combat demo.
Good luck
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Heh, I like the increased player count, but then I mostly play in the MOBIUS PvE group, so I'm pretty sure they won't attack. There's been quite a few times where I've been chatting with people only to get interdicted though
! I generally submit, then either run away or blast them; there's only been one time that I changed my mind so I was hit by repair bills without the bounty. A kill warrant scanner is definitely worthwhile now, although I can't see the benefit of Class A over Class B.Running resonating separators to the various refinery systems and getting metals back has been fairly profitable for me, but mostly I like to think I am helping build a new station. The bonuses for the highest contributors don't seem huge, so I'm not worried about contributing the most... last I checked, I was in the top 15%; my contribution is a factor >10 smaller than the top 5, so I'm not trying to compete.
My only ship losses to date with my current commander have been to space stations, and I almost managed a third time when I accidentally boosted right into the side, leaving me with a shattered canopy and 7% hull. Giving that I had 104 tons of gold on board, docking was VERY tense! I'm glad that going into pressurised atmosphere inside the station now restores oxygen rather than exploding your ship like it used to
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So I took on a courier mission last night that was farther than I could travel. Ran out of fuel and decided to just self destruct and restart in a new free ship now that I have a better grasp on things.
On my second ship I took on a cartel mission and recovered a black box for my first profit in the game!
Another noon question, how do I communicate with other people? I saw some ships and locked onto them and tried to type out a hello but it said no communication target in range or something like that? And are there any other common questions or tips that I should keep in mind?
Congrats on the first bit of profit! Communications are not implemented well at the moment, but they are going to be hauled over in the next update in March, I think. If you go to the communications window (I think pressing '2' does it), then you get a list of ships in the region. If you click on them then you have the option for voice comms or text. Since my current setup doesn't include a microphone, I've not tried voice comms, but text works fine. Pressing 'Enter' gives quick access to the comms menu, but I don't know if that works as intended yet.
I am starting to feel like this is a game I'm glad exists and that I own, but every time I think about deciding to load it up in the evening, I don't. :/
Fair enough
... I'm feeling that way about Wasteland 2 right now. Some day there will be enough new stuff to tempt you back in, I know it ! While there's a whole lot to do in ED, it doesn't neccessarily provide the motivation for doing it. The game outlined in the design discussion archives sounds phenomenal, but we're not there yet. I reckon that given enough time ED could get there. -
So Elite Dangerous 1.1 is out, and I'm really enjoying it. The interdiction rate is WAAAY up, making me glad i bought those 6 multicannons!
I've been testing out the current community goal, having missed those in beta, and it's pretty clever. In this case, we are helping to source materials to build a new space station in a previously uninhabited system. Candidates for the system were proposed by the DDF, a short list was published on Galnet, and the system was decided by the amount of player interest in each system, measured by scanning data.
To join in, you have to go to the station specified on Galnet (the improved routefinder was very helpful here, getting me 300 ly with no problems). You then have to sign up on the bulletin board. After signing up, you contribute by selling as many metals as you can (or want to) to the station; your reward depends on your contribution as well as how well the goals are met (expressed as Tier 1 to Tier 8 in this case). What I think is a nice touch, is that your contribution is measured in tons rather than credits, so someone who can only haul say 10 tons of copper gets as much credit for their contribution as someone who contributes 10 tons of platinum... the difference in profit is already taken care of in the market. While everybody who signs up gets a reward that is set by the Tier achieved, the top 70%, top 40%, Top 15% and Top 3 commanders get extra rewards on top of this.
The result of this community goal is a good trade run for people at all stages in their Elite career, with plenty of opportunity for action via pirates.
The system map now says who discovered a star or planet first as soon as you BWAAAAAMPF them; if there is no name, then you are the first and scanning them gets an extra bonus. When you sell the data, there is a special alert to congratulate you on your discovery, as well as a bonus. Helpfully, you can sell exploration data by the page, rather than one system at a time.
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Oh also
(different topic, still near end-game)
What was that blue glowy lady who followed you through the eluvian after you drank from the well (or in my case after Morrigan drank from the well).
The spirit thing didn't show up later. At first I assumed it was maybe Mythal, since there was all that junk about being forever bound to Mythal, but then Flemeth was Mythal.
I'm pretty sure that WAS Morrigan... in my playthrough I let her drink the water, she went blue when she opened the mirror. She was still glowing when she came through herself
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So I just look at it and I don't need to use my charge scanny BWAAAAMP thing on it? How do I know when I get the data? I fiddled around next to the star for like five minutes before logging out last night.
Your BWAAAAAAMP thing looks for new planets / stars/ etc. but doesn't scan the details. To do that, you need to target one of the undiscovered things, and when you get close enough it will automatically start scanning, and a little timer icon will appear in the left panel. After it's finished, the thing will change from Unknown to the name of the planet or star. You need to be at least 20 ly from a system before you can sell the data. After the 1.1 update scheduled for this week, the first person to discover each planet/star will be shown, and they will get a bonus.
For trading, you need to buy stuff which has a high supply, and sell it in a system with high demand for that stuff... when you select it, the description now says which type of economy produces it, and which consumes it; economies are things like agricultural, industrial, refinary, extraction, high tech, military, terraforming, and service off the top of my head. So agricultural worlds sell e.g. food and beer,and buy crop harvesters and fertilisers. Meanwhile, refineries buy minerals from extraction economies then sell the resulting metals to high tech or industrial economies. Galactic average is NOT necessarily a good indication of what to buy because some regions are so well stocked that even the stuff they demand is cheaper than the average. Some stations sell rare goods (listed in yellow) that increase in value the further away you go from the station... it's not worth buying these unless you want to go 100-150 light years away to sell them.
You might be best off taking courier missions from the bulleting boards to start with, as these are basically free money as long as you complete them on time. There's a lot to learn, but there's no rush. You might like to join the MOBIUS group and start off there (groups are named after the player who started them): this is a PvE group with over 4000 members.There's nothing in the game to stop PvP, but players agree not to attack other players, except in conflict zones when the player has signed up for the opposing side.
Good luck, and don't be one of those players who obsesses over maximising credits per hour- this is work and those guys often end up burning out and complaining, when they are missing out on 99% of what Elite has to offer.
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I'm just really disappointed in the support for this game right now. There's an absolutely huge, full-hard-lock-computer-crashing bug that affects a lot of people, and Frontier's complete lack of communication is just aggrivating. It's bad enough that I'm seriously considering asking for a refund, because I'm just not getting any support whatsoever and I've done everything under the sun to fix a problem that is only in their game.
Sorry to hear that! You have every right to ask for a refund, but it might be worth holding off for a month or so because your issue might be fixed in version 1.1 (public next week) or 1.2 (out in March)
So, apparently one of the Devs dumped all the discovery data they have stored up to this point?
http://dump.bass-speaker.com/discovery.php
That's cool, I have 204 objects that'll have my name on them when 1.1 comes live for all.
If you click the "here" at the top of the page, you can see the list by Commander. I'm apparently the 3856th most exploringest Commander out of 15292. Top quarter isn't too bad.
Cool! I'm #1753 on that list, with 742 discoveries
. I did a round trip to the bottom of the disc yesterday (too snowy for work), and bagged almost a million credits from exploration, including 120,000 from one system with an Earthlike world. I've just made it to Pathfinder rank in exploration, and finally upgraded to 5A Frame Shift Drive (32 ly per jump, 25 ly with 104 tons of cargo!!!!!).Interestingly, number 6 in that list (Tequila) posted a screen saying that they had made Elite explorer, with 99,999,923 cr from exploring (or something like that). I guesss the other 5 are Elite too.
DocRandal beat me to the news about the roaming station, which is great news for us old timers who remember the original short story. In other news from Newsletter 61, here is a concept for the biggest playable ship on the Federal side, the Corvette
PAX EAST AMBASSADORS WANTED
Elite Dangerous is coming to Boston at PAX East in March 5-8. Any US based players (preferably East Coast), who are familiar with the game, are over 21, and are available on those dates are welcome to apply. This is the same as the thing I did for E3, and was exhausting but well worth it
. I'll be applying again. If you're interested, email [email protected] with subject line PAX East Ambassadors with 3 brief reasons why you should be chosen. Flights, accomodation and expenses paid, and you'll get awesome swag if past experience is anything to go by .MAC VERSION BETA TEST END OF MARCH
One of the major stretch goals for the Kickstarter was a Mac version ~3 months after the PC release. The beta is expected to start at the end of March, and last ~6 weeks. Anyone who bought on PC can also play on Mac for free, with the same commander apparently
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I've completed a few missions now (and ran away from one when it was clear my party wasn't up to snuff
). I've unlocked a blacksmith that can upgrade gear, a guild that can upgrade abilities, and a sanitarium to cure bad traits (as mentioned above). I'm really enjoying it so far.I am not sure how much is balancing, but things can go horribly wrong very quickly. The only really jarring thing that happened so far was a time where I gave my party some food to heal up, then seconds later hit a hungry state, and had to starve because I didn't have enough food left... but but they had just eaten!
I don't normally buy into early access but the nature of the game lends itself to multiple play throughs anyway, which is why I bought it.
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Darkest Dungeon successfully hit its Kickstarter back in March 2014: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1460250988/darkest-dungeon-by-red-hook-studios
However, I had no idea about it at the time. It is a gorgeous 2D party side-scrolling adventure where too much exposure to the bloody, weird, or bloody weird, stresses your party out, making them paranoid, likely to turn to drink, masochistic or depressed (for example).
I seem to remember seeing something about it a few months ago, but the first time I decided I needed it in my life was after seeing Jim Sterling's let's play:
Luckily, it entered early access today (Feb 3rd) on Steam for $20. Apparently it will be available on Vita and PS4(?) too. I've snatched it up, and am really enjoying it so far.
It's hard to describe, so here's a dev video to help out a bit
--- You play as a guy who is trying to reclaim his estate from evil forces; you use various types of heirlooms found during adventures to upgrade bits of the estate
--- You can attract new heroes each game week, a good thing since death is permanent
--- Stress is at least as important as health... if stress is too high, characters usually gain an affliction (but can get a positive trait if they
re very very lucky).
--- Characters can get stressed in battle or just by being creeped out... awesome victories help relieve stress.
--- Characters can relieve stress by taking a week off adventuring and going to the church to pray / meditate/ flagelate, or to a bar to drink/gamble/sexy time. Various character traits mean that they might get extra relief from some types, or they cannot use others
--- There are several ways to manage how light or dark the dungeons are. Darker dungeons are harder and more stressful, but yield bigger rewards
--- There seem to be 10 different classes so far, with combat abilities and campfire abilities. Combat abilities depend on where you are in your group, as well as where the enemy is, so in the example below the skill can only be used if you're in the first 3 rows, and can only target monsters in the first 3 rows.
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Here are some screenies from the beta, gimpified by Facebook, grr!
Showing off the new Founders' decal
And again (with even more bling)... it's easy to get money in the beta, so I just topped myself up to where I am in the persistent universe (more or less)
Being able to sort the outfitting menus by module type, price, power, class etc. is VERY welcome! (the Type 9 is 100 cr to aid testing)
Here are some city lights on the night side (hopefully not to facebookified)
And here's me plotting a nice long route... it doesn't try to do EVERY possible destination anymore, so is quite a bit faster even though the max volume is 1000 times larger
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I finished the main story, and liked the ending. Rather than carrying on with my stabby rogue, I decided to roll a new character to make the opposite decisions to those I made already; I also messed around with Dragon Age Keep to alter the world state. I'm not going to do it at high priority, but I think it will be fun to chip away at and see the differences. Most of my interest comes from being invested in the previous games rather than this one to be honest.
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I finished Dragon Age: Inquisition recently (thanks to lots of snow days). That game reallys has some ups and downs, and I think it's mostly due to letting the player control the pacing. I'm no game designer, and my attempt at pacing my game was flakey at best
, with periods of frustration and boredom along with very enjoyable highs. I have long been a fan of the Dragon Age series, but Origins remains my favorite (it's a different type of game, on pc if not on console- I played on pc and 360). Thanks to the narrative structure, I might even prefer Dragon Age II (unlike a lot of people, I enjoyed that game a lot). I'll definitely play Inquisition again... I've already started a new character to make different choices, but it seems like a game that can be enjoyed here and there in chunks. -
ED 1.1 BETA RELEASED TODAY
Alpha and beta backers for ED can test a beta version of ED 1.1 from 18:30 GMT this evening (around half an hour from now). There is the usual vast amount of additions, tweaks and fixes (here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=108887&p=1692747#post1692747)
Here are the highlights:
--- Community goals added (help ease famine, construct a new spacestation, etc)
--- Route planning extended to 1000 ly from 100 ly (YAAASSSSSSSS)
--- "Discovered by" tag added to system map, showing first person to scan a body and sell data
--- Fancy new gas giant shader
--- City lights on night side of inhabited planets
--- Pilot's Federation rank decals
--- Russian language translation added (and French and German translations are improved)
ED 1.1 should be available to everyone next week
Screenshots. Shots of your screen.
in Video Gaming
Posted
I am SO HAPPY that the next build of Elite Dangerous will include an external camera! It is out now for us beta testers, and should be out next week for everyone. Here are a few shots, starring a new ship, the Fer de Lance (and also a shot of my trusty Asp)