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Elite: Dangerous (Kickstarter)

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I may end up turning in my exploration data this weekend, provided I don't blow up. Which faction I should turn in the data to first?

 

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a community event for exploration data at the moment.

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If it were me, I would sell it at the first available outpost to be honest, since there's no CG on (one just finished). The only way of getting bonus cash right now is to get 10,000 merits in the Sirius Corp power (Li something something) without losing that data. It must be worth quite a bit now! 

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Since I took a 5 week break from Elite to finish manuscripts and didn't take a black hole/neutron heavy exploration route, the exploration data was only worth a little over 13M credits (Lots of terraformable worlds). I did get well into Surveyor rank though. Next time I'll chart right for the dangerous systems and get comfortable skimming around the core and other energetic star systems. I'll also become a snob explorer and only investigate water worlds and worlds that appear to have an atmosphere to increase my travel distance now that I have my name on about 100 systems.

 

Bought and outfitted a Type 6 to start doing trade runs and build up to a Type 7>Python trader. Trying to build up a credit buffer so I can buy that incoming Cobra Mk IV and also explore more dangerous systems without much fear of losing my exploration data. My new goal is to trade and get and fully outfit a python for trading, a vulture for combat, and enough of a credit buffer so I can run around without feeling pinched.

 

Joined Alising Duval's faction in powerplay to start working up to those prismatic shields for my combat vessels. I'll have to review how to earn merits with her and then set up trading routes so I can pick up/drop off her info as needed. That feels more fun than just running a trading loop.

 

Anyone know how expensive that Cobra Mk IV is going to be?

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Congrats on making surveyor!

From experience, a trade Python and battle Vulture plus wiggle room is about 90-100 million unless you find a nice discount. We don't know how much a cobra mk iv is yet, but I would guess a couple of million. In the mean time the diamondback ships are hardened explorers, if you want to try them out.

Also, for 13+ million, I would use an asp for trading rather than a type 6, unless you are worried about insurance. It can carry as much, further, and with better protection and mobility. It's a pure upgrade :).

By the way the CQC stress test beta is available for everyone to play, with full release in 3 weeks

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Yeah, I steered away from the Asp since I had heard all about the expensive structural maintenance and costs. I also wanted a good 5M for buying full loads of Palladium (since I have a personal "No Imperial Slaves" policy). I still may consider it.

 

Right now I have a Diamondback Explorer for exploration, a Cobra MKIII for a general travel vehicle/rare goods trading/nostalgia, and a Viper for small ship combat.

 

Just trying to get my Trade vessel upgraded/fitted, upgrade the Viper to a Vulture, and grab the "cool ships" (Fer de Lance, Imperial Clipper).

 

Is there any optimized Mining ship yet?

 

CQC really hasn't grabbed me although I'm sure it's great for training people "how to fly" in the Elite universe.

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I've been messing around with smaller ships, and the viper is great... the only ship to give me red out with the docking computer :D! I just swapped it out for a courier, which has insane shields and 3 medium hard points (and more power), too see how I like it. There's now a pretty broad range of small ships to suit various styles of combat.

The contrast with the type 9 is huge... I almost drilled a hole in the floor when I first tried to land a courier :P! Luckily I had those crazy shields (about as strong as a vulture or python).

If you have a fuel scoop and a shield, the asp is pretty cheap to run (but I think the type n ships are cheaper). However, being free to buy all of the goods you want is very important too.

Have you looked at the fan-made ship building site coriolis.io? It allows you to set up any ship with any parts, and gives you cost, jump ranges, shields, armour, price etc.. The only downside is that it doesn't include variations in speed. I've spent quite a few hours messing around with it.

Apparently the clipper is the best ship for mining, probably because it is the fastest big ship, meaning you can cover a lot of ground. You need to be able to defend yourself unless you go way out. I learned of a system with pristine metallic rings and a high tech station recently (hip 21991 I think), so I am going to build a clipper and find out :).

A python and vulture combo is very potent. I moved away from those ships after a while because I felt that they were a bit too powerful to be interesting for me. The python is insanely good all round, even though I never flew it pre-nerf. My trade focused Python could also easily handle bounty hunting too, and I was never really troubled by interdiction, and it is the biggest ship that can fit on an outpost. The vulture is thought to be the best combat ship in the game so far, but at least the power restrictions make it interesting to kit out.

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Agreed re: Python and Vulture combo. Thanks for the Clipper miner idea.

 

I just don't have enough time to play Elite so I'll happily take the overpowered ship combos to compensate for my lack of flying time. Once I have enough credits, I'll gladly take out all the different ships and try out new combinations.

 

The upside to not having enough time to play is a complete lack of burnout. Also, Elite is relaxing.

 

Coriolis.io - best ship loadout site hands down.

 

Re: pristine metallic rings - saw a lot of those exploring. Too bad I couldn't mine them.

 

What I'm really looking forward to is ground landings and new mechanics to sink my teeth into. Hoping Frontier does another pass at the mission structures and puts more depth into those as well. (multi-branched mission chains and salvaging runs as well as ground landing missions)

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This is my new pimped out ride :D

post-33997-0-37882900-1442522581_thumb.jpg

I've been mining and having a blast! The ring is pristine metallic, meaning only a few chunks are needed to make a full ton, and there's lots of precious metals around. It's only 41 ls from a high tech station which has metals on high demand too! As well as mining, I did a bit of bounty hunting while I was there, helping other miners out. In my first trip out, I made about 150 k on metals (not really trying too hard), and about 250 k on bounties. Since I have class 3 turrets, I can blast pirates and carry on mining :P!

Frontier keep saying that they're intending to expand missions, and maybe they will in this update or next; the full release always has a bit more stuff than the betas. More complex missions would be very welcome, especially involving passengers that can generate their own mid flight.

BREAKING NEWS: 1.5 (Ships) has an intended release at the same time as Horizons, and will bring the total ship count to 30 + Cobra Mk IV. In addition to the Federal Corvette, other new ships for 1.5 include the Imperial Cutter, Asp Scout, and Viper Mk IV!

A new asp eh? Very exciting! Also ginormoships :D

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I thought the Asp Scout was like the budget version of the Asp and mostly geared toward players with less income as a stepping stone toward the real deal.

 

I haven't played in a couple months. I should dip my toes back in.

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I thought the Asp Scout was like the budget version of the Asp and mostly geared toward players with less income as a stepping stone toward the real deal.

 

I haven't played in a couple months. I should dip my toes back in.

The Asp Scout had only just been announced; maybe you're thinking of the Diamondback Scout? Having said that, Frontier came out with a Diamondback Explorer in response to player feedback on the Scout; it is larger with more module slots, jumps further, but is slower and less manoeuvrable.

A smaller, nippier Asp could be pretty badass! The DBS is billed as a combat explorer and is a fantastic little fighter, but has room for very little else than a fuel scoop and scanners. An Asp Scout might be a bigger version of this. Or it might go the other way, reducing weight to increase range ( inconsistent with existing ship names, and Diamondbacks are from the same manufacturer as the Asp). Either is good

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Weekly Newsletter blurb:

 

At the end of next week we’re attending both EGX in Birmingham (UK), and TwitchCon in San Francisco. The EGX panel is sure to be one of the biggest events of the year for Elite Dangerous fans, so if you’re going to EGX make sure you don’t miss it.

Art Director Chris Gregory, Lead Designer Sandro Sammarco, Executive Producer Michael Brookes and CEO David Braben will shed new light on some of the exciting features coming as part of the Elite Dangerous: Horizons new season of expansions coming to PC this Holiday.

The first expansion in the Elite Dangerous: Horizons season, Planetary Landings, introduces players to realistic planet surfaces and the first all-new Surface Recon Vehicle (SRV) the ‘Scarab’. 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 their SRVs, all without loading times or breaks in gameplay. But there is much more to come from the full Elite Dangerous: Horizons season.

When we announced Elite Dangerous: Horizons we said that the second major expansion will include an all-new game-changing loot and crafting system. And at our EGX panel we’ll be revealing more amazing new gameplay features coming in the Elite Dangerous: Horizons season!

The panel is at 4PM on Friday at the Dev Sessions Theater.

 

The "crafting system" is new. Made my eyebrows go up.

 

The Asp Scout sounds like a fit between the Viper and the Vulture, perhaps with less powerful shielding for balance reasons.

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Frontier teased crafting and looting at gamescom :). I'm hoping that crafting is done by experts rather than yourself, since 34th century spacecraft are a bit more complex than daggers! They had previously mentioned finding guys who could tune some of your modules.

By the way, they've just announced that ED is coming to Vive!

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Frontier teased crafting and looting at gamescom :). I'm hoping that crafting is done by experts rather than yourself, since 34th century spacecraft are a bit more complex than daggers! They had previously mentioned finding guys who could tune some of your modules.

By the way, they've just announced that ED is coming to Vive!

 

That reminds me of my old Elite:Frontier wish list of doing custom jury-rigging to your ships; hopefully it's that and optionally tied with some sort of deep mission tree system.

 

Great move to get in at the start of the Steam VR system - Elite is a great showcase piece for VR.

 

Destiny consumed my gaming time this weekend but it's great to have a game like Elite on deck.

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The Elite Dangerous Horizons panel at EGX was very exciting, showing off lots of cool stuff for Season 2 beyond planetary landings!

 

--- FIGHTER BAY FOR LARGER SHIPS

 

post-33997-0-57742800-1443197333_thumb.png

 

This has been teased for a while, but larger ships will be able to install a fighter bay for extra defense options. IT looks like you get the Condor. If you leave your post to get into the fighter, the ship can engage auto-pilot to defend itself a bit. However, that may not be necessary because...

 

--- MULTICREW SHIPS!

 

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Players will be able to cooperatively fly in the same ship, doing different tasks, so one person might fly, and another might operate the turrets. FD said that they weren't sure how big the crew could get, because of the problem  of finding things to do for people, but the answer will be more than 2

 

--- CUSTOMISABLE PLAYER AVATARS

 

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Now more human-scale stuff is being added, there will also be more opportunitiy to see more of your character (for reasons as yet undisclosed). There are loads of sliders to create male and female characters... Hair is also available, but trick, and they don't want to show bad hair 

 

--- CRAFTING AND LOOT

 

post-33997-0-00159600-1443197310_thumb.png

 

All  professions will find different types of crafting components, and these will give ways to customise and personalise your ship. For example, making awesome green lasers could change the relative damage to shields and to armour. Some components will be very rare. SOme will be only found on planets. Some will be mined, others will be found in wrecks.

 

--- VIPER MK4

 

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The first shot of the Viper Mk IV was released; tougher than the Mk II with better internals, but less maneuverable.

 

--- BOBBLEHEADS!

 

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In the early alpha testing, little bobbleheads were attached to the dashboard of the test sidewinders... they actually turned out to be very useful indicators of acceleration. Bobbleheads will return, with a special Braben bobblehead available for preorder now (I think I'll give this one a miss :P)

 

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From the newsletter:

 

"There are features that are trickier to illustrate but still very significant, like the extensions to the mission system with new military missions and rank progression, Powerplay missions and chained missions which will deliver an even richer gameplay experience. And as already announced, season two will introduce a new loot and crafting system, letting you create unique equipment."

 

Mission chains, finally!

 

Also, looking forward to jury-rigged "prototype" equipment.

 

Commander faces are obvious groundwork for the later expansions allowing you to be outside on planets and in starbases. Multi-crew ships are preparation for capital ships.

 

Re: Bobbleheads - I saw those and said "I guess they wanted to show people that Star Citizen isn't the only space game with crazy cockpit [junk]."

 

Once again I regret not getting in on the Kickstarter (only pre-ordered), no free Viper Mk IV for me.

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Heh, anything under a few million is basically free nowadays :P!

 

Here are a couple more screenies from the newsletter itself (I capped the previous ones from the live show).

 

A lovely surface view

62e1adcb-63d4-4bc7-9fd4-3c1edb66579a.png

 

FIrst rover cockpit!

 

d233b180-4ae0-4049-92ed-66bb43085fe3.png

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I'm a bit disappointed that they're adding the player avatar stuff. Hopefully the new system they're putting in place that requires them will be worth it. The crafting sounds interesting, but I wonder about the difficulty of balancing it to be useful and interesting, without it being "required." 

 

Still, most of it looks neat. I need to get my joystick out again. A brief trist with EVE Online got me off the Elite train for a while.

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I'm a bit disappointed that they're adding the player avatar stuff. Hopefully the new system they're putting in place that requires them will be worth it. The crafting sounds interesting, but I wonder about the difficulty of balancing it to be useful and interesting, without it being "required."

 

The easy way to balance this would be to make the energy requirements higher or limit other ship components depending on the type of prototype device(s) you're installing. Kind of how you can put heavy guns on a Vulture but good luck running anything other than those guns.

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Yes. A new player.

Yes. A new player rant.

 

I am not saying, this game is not good or great or 'fill-in-your-favorite-adjective'. And yes, we can skip the "this is ELITE - just like it was meant to be", or "It is obviously not for you", et cetera, et cetera requitals. I was there, when the original ELITE came out (Apple II and Commodore for me). I played my fair share of Wing Commander and Freelancer and what not.

... what I AM saying is ... this game is STILL 'new player' unfriendly AS HELL! But why??

After so many patches and updates, one would think (I should never assume, but I did speculate) that the lack of anything comprehensive or even an accitental, unexpected sun erruption of a of a more welcoming first gaming hour, was on one of those far, far away, lower bullet points of the developers 'to-do list'. But, nay... - all new content is focused on the established core player base. Most likely, reflecting their (your) wishes.

I play all kinds of game genres. I am fairly interested in game design and I enjoy tutorials as an academic research topic, since I believe one of the higher callings in higher education is the ability to COMMUNICATE knowledge from one person to the next.

A video game, which tells you "Go watch a YouTube video", is filing bancruptcy when it comes to game(play) design. 

I don't care, how great the game mechanics, how vast the universe, how amazing the later game is; the very first hour is important, in my game design belief. Even if a game does not explain it in-game (RTFM, etc), it has to make an effort.

In the end, there is not a lot to learn, in this particular game. It does not demand reading a 1000 pages (like the DCS World A-10C Warthog manual) and/or understanding real world navigation systems, combat aviation, radar functions (again, DCS World - the finest example of a flight sims), yet what it presents as a 'tutorial' does not deserve that title?

I refer - again - to DCS World, which has some of the more demanding and complicated 'gameplay'/simulation systems, and yet THEY understand how to interactively communicate what to do and how to do it and they find ways to draw new players in, just like Blizzard does, or Valve, or Relic, or any given decent developer. 

"There was no money" was an argument before the first two, three patches/updates. Now, there is no excuse.

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Hi Adam :),

apologies if this sounds stupid, but do you know there are playable tutorials as well as videos? I know one person who didn't realise until I told them! If I recall correctly, there are tutorials on basic controls (shooting waste canisters in an asteroid field), docking and landing, travel in super cruise, and advanced combat (various scenarios). I think the latest tutorials (in the open beta) even give you tasters of several different ships.

While the controls are relatively simple, there is a lot to learn about the game. I agree that the new player experience leaves a lot to be desired, especially since the early experience is so different from the game it's demoed as. The next update adds CQC (a close quarters combat championship, i.e. arena shooter) which is separate from the main game, and might serve as a good intro for some people. CQC is in public beta now, and expected to release in a couple of weeks.

By the way, have you read the manual?

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Haha - yes and yes.

I especially have issues with those - so called - 'tutorials. You travel to the 'training station' and what do you do there? N o t h i n g. You start the basic combat tutorial ... and is anything explained in there? A b s o l u t e l y ...not! You don't get to hear anything about shields or weapons or if those lasers have a convergence range etc, ... you are just left in space and 'hey, shoot some stuff'.

 

This is as bad as it is lazy, in my opinion.

 

And the manual is so vanilla. If one wants real information, they are better off turning to the Wiki (...which is user-made?). 

I got around. Doesn't take long. As mentioned above, I played my fair share of space sims. It really is not complicated. But, this was not about me. This is about game design - or the lack of it - and 'new', inexperienced players, trying to ease into a new game. Maybe their very first space sim. They are doing a really bad job at that. And, yes - exploration, figuring things out, is also exciting. But don't call something 'tutorial' which has nothing to do with the Latin root of the word, unless, they want to 'guard' the game from new people?

I play a ton of games, of all types and genres, over a year. This just stood out, in a bad way. Even after I have read all the reviews and comments, since it's beta.

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Heh, having basically said RTFM, I'm now going to expound on "Elite or GTFO" :P!

There is definitely a lack of information in the training missions, and that is likely because they evolved from the alpha test scenarios. What is worse, as the developers got better and better themselves, they decided to make the training missions harder to compensate, which was very short sighted. I think they were toned down for release, but I could not honestly judge this, because I have been playing it for nearly 2 years, since the first alpha.

But the thing is that flying around is the easy part... learning how to make a living takes a lot longer. Tutorialising all of that would be difficult, especially as there is no consistent narrative to be experienced by each player. Learning the ropes is part of the journey; to be fair, some people have said that it stopped being fun once they finished learning it all. I don't think that anything is particularly difficult (apart from skilful flying), but there is a large volume of information to take in. People have said that the game is a mile wide and an inch deep, but there's at least a couple of feet below the surface.

If you don't fancy taking the time to learn how to best balance power and weight for your combat ship when the best load outs cannot be all powered at once, or where and what to mine in order to balance profit, sanity, and risk of pirate attack, or how to force victims to drop cargo, or how the states of systems affect missions and influence, or many other things, the game might not be for you :).

Frontier have deliberately obfuscated many of the mechanisms, possibly to keep it from being overly gamey, so much of the learning has been a community effort. If you want to stick with it, I recommend joining one of the many communities. For my part, I will do my best to Answer any questions

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It's a game that requires a patience quite unexpected of people these days I think. I've dipped in and out of it since release and every restart has me floundering around checking Google and the control options to remind me exactly how I should be doing.

It does some things that are definitely 'old school' too (like flying into a station and getting blown to smithereens just because I forgot to ask permission) with a punishment to mistake scale that is brutally harsh for something so inconsequential in game, but then I also think that it has a logical narrative that makes a lot of sense. In the end I think it's a game that both demands your respect but also respects you as an individual with not holding your hand while making the information you need not that hard to find out. I guess you either go for that or you don't, but give it a little patience and it only takes one evening of game time to be happily flying around the galaxy and starting to earn your crust.

I've not played it now for quite some time but I'm ready to get back into it again now. Looking forward to all the changes!

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Each iteration is getting better. I suspect Frontier is going to make the "CQC" challenge flight sections the de facto tutorial. Right now, I agree, the 'tutorial' is abysmal other than teaching you the basics of flight.

 

Each time they iterate with a major patch I think "this feels like what Elite:Dangerous 1.0 should have been". Which makes me conclude that they actually did launch at the right time, when the basic mechanics (trade, combat, explore) were mostly functional.

 

Until they have deep mission chains and potentially unique mission chains spread throughout the populated galaxy, as well as all their other planned improvements, I won't consider the game truly finished. That being said, I'm enjoying what game is there.

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This week's newsletter was another good one, sneeking a peek at the landing HUD

5aba77815529a52666e39c41c18cd74e.jpg

 

 

This is the newsletter text:

"Your HUD will automatically show and hide certain gauges to keep the information relevant. As you approach the planet from a distance, you'll notice the first new thing on the cockpit display - the altimeter (the single vertical line seen to the right in the screenshot above). The altimeter will show you how close you are to the planet's surface, and help you control the speed of your approach. 

 
The pitch gauge can be seen in the very centre of the cockpit display - it will align itself to the planet's gravity. This gauge will help the player to determine which way is 'up' - a brand new concept for Commanders in the Elite Dangerous galaxy! The pitch gauge also contains a horizon line, which will help you determine when you're flying 'flat' to the surface. 
 
When you get very close to the surface, and you're nearing the point where you're ready to land, the heading gauge (seen at the top of the new information in the screenshot) will point towards the poles of the planet and help you orient your direction when landing. 
 
As you can see in the screenshot, your scanner will switch to the landing-assist display, just as it does when you're landing your ship at a starport, but showing you the nearby terrain. The representation of your ship will light up blue when you're okay to put her down.
 
Now that you're safely down on the surface you're free to explore the entire planet in your SRV - who knows what you might find down there... we'll be revealing more in the coming weeks. "
 
The newsletter also details another update to missionss in 1.5: we will be able to take timed missions, such as assassination attempts where the target will be at a specific time and place (just like the old days). We will also be able to take missions in space, although there is no daisy chaining just yet. However, there may be additional conditions for success, such as not being scanned .

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