toblix

Elite: Dangerous (Kickstarter)

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Is this true? Because I was under the impression that interacting with other people was now non-optional. By referring to EVE, I was mainly talking about being at the mercy of those that have played for years longer (or in this case, bought more expensive Kickstarter packages.) Considering most of what I'm interested in is the trading, the piloting of the ship isn't as much the draw for me.

You can totally play solo... you will be in the same galaxy, with the same events, and if someone buys up limited supplies then you won't get them; however, you will never encounter other players. Alternatively, there is a private group with several hundred people who want to play PvE. The game rules say you can attack and destroy other players, but members choose not to. I prefer this approach to a separate PvE mode, because that would give PvE an advantage if there was no friendly fire.

 

Trading can be very serene, but you can still get attacked... when I am in a trading ship, I upgrade shields and thrusters, along with the power distribution, going for a quick getaway rather than a fight. Well established trade routes have small profit margins, so you need to explore a bit to find the good stuff.

 

The starter ships offered by the various kickstarter rewards are all pretty easy to get at current prices (which are way higher than initial prices, and probably pretty close to release values). As a result, the head start is only perhaps 10-20 hours' worth of play. Alpha and beta backers have reduced insurance costs, which is only a real advantage if you explode often... I've lost 1 ship in the last ~40 hours of testing (but then I was mostly playing in a PvE group :P). Founders (including all alphas) get immediately inducted to the Federation of Elite Pilots, with extra mission opportunities and discounts, but start out Harmless like everyone else. I am hoping that we can create new games that disable all of the privileges, because I have rather a lot; we've asked for this option several times over the last ~2 years.

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All right, that doesn't bother me so much then. In fact, that sound's pretty optimal to the way I'd like to play. Trading is a lot more fun when there's a player driven market, but I don't want to worry about getting interdicted by uber-players every time I run a route.

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Now that 3.9 has been rolled out (skipping 3.05+ straight through) the game is suddenly working, and fun. I could get to every trade run! I had plenty of time to complete things! I made money!

 

I still need to learn how to do things, but at least pulling stuff off the bulletin board led to a successful evening. It's the first time since I decided to jump in that I haven't wanted to clear my save and start over.

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That's great to hear :)!

 

I've flown back to the UK for the Premiere, so haven't had much of a look at 3.9, but squeezed in about 20 minutes. The premiere is today, 22nd November, and will be livestreaming on twitch at 20:00 GMT (3pm EST) if anyone is interested... the actual event goes from 6 til midnight though, and I've been invited in early as one of ~20 community ambassadors that helped show off the game at various events. Very exciting! 

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I had a fantastic time at the premiere, the first ED event that I could attend... 12 hours of pre-party, party, and after-party, definitely back in Blighty :D. I've put a bunch of photos on facebook if anyone's interested in having a gander : https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153453037369152.1073741866.558999151&type=1&l=75430eeb34

 

I had a really great chat about all sorts of games with Mike Channel from Outside XBox / Eurogamer, as well as a huge variety of original players and young kids... great fun. It was wonderful to put faces to many of the forum names I've seen over the last couple of years, and it was nearly always surprising!

 

There was an hour long livestream hosted by Jessica Chobot and  Andy Akinwolere, captured from Twitter here: 

 

The main attraction was the live demo near the end, with the first in-game arrival of the Imperial capital ship, and it made quite the entrance:

 

NO MORE BETA/ GAMMA IN FULL SWING

Beta closed on November 22, and only Preorders are available now. Anyone who pre-orders will be able to play the tutorial missions from Wednesday... get practising!

 

Gamma 1.0 is now available, and I think that anyone who pledged for the game during the Kickstarter phase has access

 

--- ALL SPACE RESTRICTIONS GONE! There is no more bubble, and all 400,000,000 star systems are ours to explore! Including Sol, and Lave where it all started

 

--- MULTIPLE START OPTIONS! Kickstarter backers with suitable pledges can choose from a number of start positions, including an Imperial bounty hunter with an upgraded Eagle, an independent trader starting at Lave Station with a Cobra and 100 credits, a long-range cobra on the edge of explored space,  and a choice of ships starting at the Founders' system.

 

I now see the reason for introducing Beta 3.9 a couple of days ago... the Gamma update was very quick, probably a few tweaks.

 

ELITE DANGEROUS APP

The Elite Dangerous companion app is available now for IOS, and will soon be available for Android and Windows phones. It has a nice intro to the game, and if you log in with your ED username and password, you can find your stats, look at the stock market for the station you're in, and see which ships are available. Hopefully more functionality will be added

 

There have been some rough patches, but ED is looking good for launch! Another wipe could happen, so I'm not commiting myself to any play yet other than messing around with some of the start positions.

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Hmm, it's surprisingly hard to find a place with Elite Dangerous news on the web. The Kickstarter page hasn't had an update since May : (

 

None of the updates I've received have mentioned that Gamma is available to anyone who pledged, do you have a link to a news post or something? I'd love to jump in and play a little bit before release.

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Hmm, it's surprisingly hard to find a place with Elite Dangerous news on the web. The Kickstarter page hasn't had an update since May : (

 

None of the updates I've received have mentioned that Gamma is available to anyone who pledged, do you have a link to a news post or something? I'd love to jump in and play a little bit before release.

Yeah, I was thinking of you when I wrote that, wondering if you got access yet. If not, you definitely will get into the training missions on Wednesday :).

 

I suggest that you go to store.elitedangerous.com, and try to sign in with your email and password used in the kickstarter. If that works, you could click on the "My Downloadable Products" tab, and see if Gamma is there.

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Hmm, I don't know if I ever created an account. I'll have to wait until I'm home to dig through my email.

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@Logman: I've been using a 360 gamepad since last December, and it works well for me. It took quite a bit of messing around with the bindings to get it to feel right though, since I play in front of my TV, and avoid keyboard commands if possible. The executive producer (Michael Brookes) reckons that the gamepad is as good as a joysick HOTAS set-up, but prefers HOTAS because it feels more immersive.

 

@Dewar: you should definitely be able to get into gamma if you backed for the game during the kickstarter... I'm repeating myself here and being specific, because one forum user backed to the name an NPC level and then topped up to the game after the KS finished and can't get in. Here is a link to a post by Frontier staff with a link to the launcher (just to show it's legit):

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=62562

 

You will need the email and password to log in (almost certainly the same as for your Kickstarter account). It would probably be far quicker to get your password from kickstarter than Frontier at the moment :)

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Figured out my password woes and am downloading right now :)

Good luck!

 

This week's newsletter was full of interesting stuff, including this peek at the Majestic Interdictor that made its debut at the premiere:

3d0be0b5-2c34-4b42-8dc4-4dd52554dbf2.jpg

 

ALL IN!

Anyone who preorders the Mercenary edition can now download and play single player combat scenarios, and Frontier have released this video which is supposedly the first in a series of pilot training videos

 

BLACK FRIDAY (?!) DEALS

 

Getting into the spirit of our cousins over the pond, FD are selling ship skins at 50% off until Monday, and have made a new bundle of Cobra skins that is free to anyone that gets it before December 1

 

Which pond? This one :D

0cde1f08-93e0-4bda-b015-841a37e83c5c.jpg

 

 

They have also added boxed copies of the game to the store

 

SPACE PORN!

They also show off user-found nebulae like this:

5a516bbc-5c50-4487-9a48-95f38f3885af.jpg

 

And this video of a black hole

 

It's not QUITE right, because the distortion should be centred on the black hole, but nearly there and damned impressive! I've mentioned it on the forums, hopefully they'll change it. 

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The single player scenarios are training missions, combining docking, trading, and combat (simple and advanced). ED has a steep learning curve to start with, and it took me several hours to get past some of the missions, but can breeze past them now.  One highlight for me was to play hide and seek in an asteroid field, trying to pick off weaker ships while using stealth to hide from a badass. The first combat tutorial video I posted above was taken from one of the earliest combat scenarios. 

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I believe it's the first scenario. The one where you learn how to deploy hardpoints and target a dude. The other ship doesn't have weapons or shields, it's just a target.

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One thing I forgot to ask, I assume there's going to be a character wipe before the game goes live, yes?

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Probably... I think the original plan was to have no wipes after the start of gamma, but there's been quite a bit of balancing so there might be one (possibly partial where they reset progress but let you keep credits). The recent discussions have not mentioned anything about being an early start.

 

I'm away from home, only able to play it on a laptop in bursts of ~30 minutes before it overheats and turns off so I won't be playing much before I go back to the US at the end of December. I've had fun trying different starting points out (available to kickstarter backers), including Lave, the Founders' System (where I did a job for the Dark Wheel) and on the edge of explored space :). I was able to visit my space station when starting as an imperial bounty hunter, but haven't seen my planet (I really did back this game to a very silly level :D)

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Hmm, I'm having a hard time even finding a mission I can do and my 100cr isn't enough to buy any commodities to trade.

 

I am getting pretty good at taking off and landing though.

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Yep, missions are definitely harder to come by, because reputation is factored in to whether or not they are available. However, in general bigger space stations are more likely to have them than outposts.

 

I would recommend selling one of your ships: you should have a second ship waiting in your starting system (or if you go to a shipyard, look for stored ships and it will tell you where it is). The eagle sells for about 40k and the sidewinder sells for about 30k

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I have only the one Eagle according to my ship display, and all the components are loaned so I can't even do the old stand-buy of selling my guns for cargo.

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Everyone who ordered the game before release gets an eagle as a second ship; if you chose the Imperial Bounty Hunter start, then you have two eagles :). If you had no ships in storage, the storage tab would show (0) not (1)

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Everyone who ordered the game before release gets an eagle as a second ship; if you chose the Imperial Bounty Hunter start, then you have two eagles :). If you had no ships in storage, the storage tab would show (0) not (1)

 

I don't have the Bounty Hunter start, just the basic, but I'll reset my save tonight and take a look at that display again and see if I can figure it out. The tutorials are really great at teaching you piloting, but not so great at teaching you what all the different screens are really telling you.

 

Edit: Badfinger, I believe the stored ships display was inside the shipyard option of station services?

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