toblix

Elite: Dangerous (Kickstarter)

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I'm periodically checking the launcher for  signs of the update, but it takes ages.... the switch-over started at around 8 am this morning, coming up to 11 hours ago! I know it's absolutely HUGE so patience is a virtue :).

 

I was going to say that people who wander around taking missions as they go might miss out in the update, since mission availability is tied to faction reputation, and this is no-longer affected by rep with the super-powers. However I learned on today's livestream that many missions are locked to specifc faction reputation anyway, although this wasn't clear. Also, the number of missions available at once has increased, so people will be able to access more missions after all. 

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The Engineers update has been nothing but good for Elite in my viewpoint so far. Unlocked 1 engineer, did some trading, enjoyed the new UI. The mission system revamp with better mission guidance, scanning USSs,  mid-mission optional goals - good. Galaxy map showing engineers and community goals - good. Granular mission results: good. I feel like I can hang out in a system for a while and not get bored as quickly. And I can tell that I'm still just scratching the surface.

 

The metaphorical "mile wide, inch deep" swimming pool of Elite got a solid 6-8 more inches of depth. Good progress.

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I'm glad you're enjoying it, I'm having an absolute ball! I have access to 4 engineers, and have had my first referral,mot someone who I don't remember from beta :).

Hands down my favourite addition is the enhanced drives for small ships, which I highly recommend to anyone. The engineer(s?) that sells them does so via outfitting, so you don't need to do meet their criteria for accessing the workshop.

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The Layman's 2 sentence update - does "missions" mean that there's actually some kind of progression in the game from point to point without just inventing it all yourself now? Even if it's just a breadcrumb chain getting you from station to station, it's generating completeable activities?

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I'm glad you're enjoying it, I'm having an absolute ball! I have access to 4 engineers, and have had my first referral,mot someone who I don't remember from beta :).

Hands down my favourite addition is the enhanced drives for small ships, which I highly recommend to anyone. The engineer(s?) that sells them does so via outfitting, so you don't need to do meet their criteria for accessing the workshop.

 

Which engineer was that? Interested on putting those on a vulture.

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Well, Felicty Farseer will sort you out, but your Vulture is a bit hefty, I'm afraid! These thrusters come in 2A and 3A sizes only, and make the little ships a whole lot faster and maneuverable. The enhanced courier is my new favourite ship, and I am currently playing with two different versions to see what's best as performance is highly mass dependent; I have a 600 m/s runner and planet surveyer, and a 530 m/s combat leaning one.

Badfinger, missions now reward hanging around a particular set of systems as you gradually build up reputation with the minor factions; I think there are around 500,000 new persistent NPCs to interact with as you rank up. So yes, there's more to it, and a wider variety of missions are now appealing thanks to changes in the mechanics

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One ther big mission change I really like is that ranks no longer cut you off from missions; instead, they indicate higher likely difficulty and reward. For example I have recently been specialising in nabbing rebel transmissions and encrypted data for a particular faction at war, getting up to 1.7 million credits a pop, as well as a whole bunch of rare materials. They have tine limits of several days, so I don't have to worry about real life getting in he way. Also, my courier can easily outrun most of the threats that thrown at you.

Now I am heading off to alliance space to see if I can boost rep with one of the engineers focused on bounty hunting by handing in bounties. They don't just take any bounty, so I guess it's only for their faction. I'm taking my Python for a change, and greater mission flexibility; normally I would just change ship for a particular mission type (now possible mid mission as we can transfer cargo between ships), but I don't want to move them all from Cubeo.

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I decided to take my Eagle down to Maia to pick up some Meta Alloys to give to Felicity Farseer.  I thought about taking my Adder that was better outfitted to the job or upgrading my Diamondback Scout that was probably better suited...but the idea of taking the Eagle down there seemed like a lot of fun.  It was tense because I only had a small number of jumps before I needed to fuel scoop and a couple mistakes could leave me stranded without fuel or a fuel source.  I had to check the galaxy map every so often and make a detour to the nearest scoopable star at times...but I made the ~450 Light Year journey from Kremainn to Maia in my little Eagle (it has a yellow paint job and I've taken to calling it Big Bird's Bones...and if I could name a ship that would be its name).  I then ventured from Maia to Deciat (and Farseer Inc) which was over 470 LY from what I can tell.  Through the course of this adventure I'd stripped out the shield generator to make room for a cargo rack and my last hull reinforcement module to make room for a small fuel tank to give me a little extra margin for error.  I was interdicted a couple of times and ended up the victor of those encounters with some damage but nothing too bad.  I managed to make my way from Deciat back to Kremain (229.75 LT according to ed-td.com's route planner) in my trusty Eagle and ended up appreciating the ship that much more.

 

After the journey I'm kind of attached to my Eagle...I've had this particular one for a while without getting it blown up and replaced via insurance and now that I've had this adventure with it I'll be sad if I ever get it blown up.  I've taken down NPC Pythons and Anacondas in it (usually with help from the NPC Fed's in high risk mining areas in Kremainn) and just today I took down an FDL with it in Ngaliba's Comprimised Nav Beacon with the help of an NPC Cobra Mk3 who I believe was a fellow bounty hunter (there may have been a third ship involved...I wasn't playing with VR so I didn't quite have the situational awareness I normally would to be able to tell who was helping me for certain beyond the Cobra that I almost collided with several times).  I like my DBS, but I think the Eagle is my favorite ship right now.  If I get enough credits I'll almost certainly slap one of the expensive enhanced thrusters in it (right now I've got a little over a million credits and I've stopped upgrading the ships I never use so that I can keep getting credits until I have over 7-10 million and feel comfortable getting those thrusters).

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I decided to take my Eagle down to Maia to pick up some Meta Alloys to give to Felicity Farseer.  I thought about taking my Adder that was better outfitted to the job or upgrading my Diamondback Scout that was probably better suited...but the idea of taking the Eagle down there seemed like a lot of fun.  It was tense because I only had a small number of jumps before I needed to fuel scoop and a couple mistakes could leave me stranded without fuel or a fuel source.  I had to check the galaxy map every so often and make a detour to the nearest scoopable star at times...but I made the ~450 Light Year journey from Kremainn to Maia in my little Eagle (it has a yellow paint job and I've taken to calling it Big Bird's Bones...and if I could name a ship that would be its name).  I then ventured from Maia to Deciat (and Farseer Inc) which was over 470 LY from what I can tell.  Through the course of this adventure I'd stripped out the shield generator to make room for a cargo rack and my last hull reinforcement module to make room for a small fuel tank to give me a little extra margin for error.  I was interdicted a couple of times and ended up the victor of those encounters with some damage but nothing too bad.  I managed to make my way from Deciat back to Kremain (229.75 LT according to ed-td.com's route planner) in my trusty Eagle and ended up appreciating the ship that much more.

 

After the journey I'm kind of attached to my Eagle...I've had this particular one for a while without getting it blown up and replaced via insurance and now that I've had this adventure with it I'll be sad if I ever get it blown up.  I've taken down NPC Pythons and Anacondas in it (usually with help from the NPC Fed's in high risk mining areas in Kremainn) and just today I took down an FDL with it in Ngaliba's Comprimised Nav Beacon with the help of an NPC Cobra Mk3 who I believe was a fellow bounty hunter (there may have been a third ship involved...I wasn't playing with VR so I didn't quite have the situational awareness I normally would to be able to tell who was helping me for certain beyond the Cobra that I almost collided with several times).  I like my DBS, but I think the Eagle is my favorite ship right now.  If I get enough credits I'll almost certainly slap one of the expensive enhanced thrusters in it (right now I've got a little over a million credits and I've stopped upgrading the ships I never use so that I can keep getting credits until I have over 7-10 million and feel comfortable getting those thrusters).

Congrats! I had a hairy enough time in my 35 million credit Asp, so doing it in a eagle is very impressive!

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Congrats! I had a hairy enough time in my 35 million credit Asp, so doing it in a eagle is very impressive!

I just finally saved up for a set of 3A Enhanced Performance Thrusters for my Eagle...its combat outfitted so its not getting racing speeds...but its a boost over the 254 or whatever m/s speed I was getting before and it turns a bit faster as well.  Power management became a bit tricky though and I had to drop my sensors down back to 2D and when I got back I put a 2D FSD drive in it to save weight and power when I'm not going long distances.  I'll probably tweak the load out a bit (maybe 1D life support instead of using 1A...though 1A has some benefits wrt its long O2 supply that can be used in combat to save power for other things...but it weights a little more so its a trade off).

 

I think I may try to upgrade my Power Plant's output a little bit and upgrade my shields to be more efficient and lighter...but for now I've got the thing running and I'll keep tweaking it to get the weight down without throwing out all armor and weapons since its still a combat loadout.

 

Edit: I'd add that I sold my Cobra and Diamondback Scout to help finance the last bit I needed for the thrusters and an extra 3.5 million credits for insurance...so I've currently got my old Sidewinder (that I may upgrade and play with as I haven't touched it in a while), my Adder that I use for exploration (and occasional trade before I got the Cobra that is now sold), and my Eagle that I put the thrusters in.  After taking the Eagle out last night I don't regret it at all...almost got an Anaconda bounty except I accidentally hit a Fed's anaconda and I had to suddenly escape 5 or 6 Federal ships in my Eagle and the thrusters made that a little easer.  Next time I'll be more careful about which ship I'm shooting.

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So, I've logged in a few times recently, ended up selling my ground vehicle because I could never figure out anything useful to do with it and it was seriously hurting my jump range. I've been trying to help out Aisling Duval. Now she's in crisis apparently, and I really have no clue how any of this works. So far the information about any of the new features has really been spotty. Is there a good place I can go to read instead?

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Hey,

Inara.cz has fairly substantial info about everything engineers, but it might be considered spoilerific.

However, the new mechanics basically boil down to 1) loot, and 2) crafting.

1) loot comes in three forms : materials, data, and commodities. Pretty much every activity can now yield loot of some kind, and the type of stuff you gain is at least somewhat logical. It appears that pretty much any type of loot can be given as a mission reward, and some types of loot are only given as mission rewards.

2) crafting is done by weird, hermit specialists, who require loot to improve various aspects of your ship. You will need to find out about them from public info or through other engineers, pass criteria for initial contact, give some sort of good faith gift, and unlock up to 5 tiers of upgrades in various categories. You unlock these levels by gaining reputation, either by crafting, or something else they like.

low level mods are more like optimising for yourr own preferences rather than upgrading, while the higher level mods can be very significant boosts to your ship's performance.

My favourite thing in the whole update is the new enhanced thruster category for small ships, and these are available for cash (class 3a enhanced thrusters are about 5 million credits). In one fell swoop, small ships are interesting for the late game. You can just buy these from the outfitting menu of one of the engineers.

The update makes certain a certain type of people upset because mods have randomly generated stats (albeit guidedly random). Also, they can't get the "best" ship simply by playing or paying enough; suddenly they think that their awesome ship is suddenly rubbish, because it's not the absolute best.

It is easy to ignore engineers until you collect the materials as you go about your adventures. You can pin one recipe from each unlocked engineer to help this.

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Hmm, I already put it back down and moved onto something else : (

 

This is one of those times that if it were an offline game, the thrill of trying to discover these things would be fun, but instead I see all these global numbers shifting around, have no clue what's going on or what they mean, and I already feel behind.

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I put down elite a month ago after realizing the Engineers patch made me worse at combat and I lost a vulture farming pirates at low RES sites. Too busy now, but I may come back in a bit after I review how to bounty hunt under the new patch.

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Yes, I've almost been destroyed multiple times and feel occasionally helpless. I almost got destroyed by an eagle in my python. I feel kinda helpless. I don't even know what changed.

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I put this game down about a year ago now and haven't gone back. Is it still approachable without any of the expansions downloaded? Or would that significantly change the experience now?

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Sorbicol, even with the base game it is *much* more approachable now with the UI and missions revamp. You just won't be able to land on planets or use the Engineers (needs the first expansion).

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@Sorbicol, the last update improved pretty much every aspect of the base game, making it more approachable and user friendly. The Air Traffic Controllers at stations and persistent mission givers provide a much needed extra shot of humanity :).

As some of the previous posts mentioned, there's also been a substantial improvement in AI, so that their combat ranks are far more indicative of their threat than before. In my engineer modified A Spec Asp, I can take down an expert Vulture, but memorably escaped with 2% hull and basically no modules from a deadly Eagle.

One big change is that all missions are available to someone sufficiently friendly with a faction, and in this case the ranking represents the difficulty. High ranked missions can result in very formidable ships sent after you, to be outrun or destroyed. I have a super fast ship dedicated to running away from these brutes :P!

My Asp is my new pride and joy, and the current focus of my engineering efforts. It is fully and has a max jump range of 36 ly, and a hair under 30 ly carrying 64 tons of cargo (29.7 or something like that); it also gets up to 430 m/s and has a surprisingly fast turn rate.

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I'll probably end up upgrading my Asp Explorer first as well. I'm just suffering from gaming inertia, trying to get started and figuring out what to work on first re: engineering. What did you work on first, Wookie, thrusters and FSDs?

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I spent a lot of time messing with a couple of enhanced couriers first. One is barebones and purely speed based, for blockade running and surface exploration, getting around 600 m/s, while the other is combat focused... The enhanced drives are insanely fun right off the bat, and even more so when modded!

I've basically done the FSD and thrusters for the Asp, both grade 3 modifications, but the FSD one was so lucky that it matched a grade 4 mod for one of my couriers, getting a 25% range increase. I'm trying to get in with as many engineers as possible right now(well not right now, as I just moved to a new place and don't get broadband until the 8th)

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There have been some pretty exciting announcements made in the livestreams from Gamescom about 2.2 so far; more livestreams tomorrow and Sunday

 

-- Release date expected to be mid october

 

-- "The Guardians" introduces two new hradline mechamics, ship-launched fighters and passenger missions, as well as 2 new ships (the Beluga and the Taipan)

 

-- Ship-launched fighters are available those ships with launcher bays 

 

-- Choice of F63 Codor (Fastest), Imperial Fighter (most maneuverable), and Taipan (most robust)

 

-- These are piloted remotely by '"telepresence", by you or a NPC fighter that you hire

 

-- You can hot swap between controlling your main ship or the fighter, and the npc fighter pilot (if any) will control the other

 

-- fighters are "glass cannons'", so punch well above their weight, but can't take many hits

 

-- when buying a fighter, you buy a bay, and select a partiular loadout; you can then use some sort of resources (ammo) to manufacture new copies of the ship if it's destroyed

 

 

 

-- The Beluga is a very large passenger ship (similar size to Anaconda)

 

-- Any ship can carry economy class or first class passenger cabins, but only Beluga and Orca can have luxury suites

 

-- Can have bulk passenger misssions or VIPs, who can make several demands en route

 

-- Appearance of aliens in 2.2 has been teased for Saturday or Suday livesteram

 

 

Sorry for lack of pictres/videos- I am in a new apartment with only phone internet until Wednesday!

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Other notes:

 

- Different star types (White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars) are going to get a revamp to look more dramatic reflecting their stellar properties (spin, gravity, particle emissions)

 

- Volcanism on rocky planets, whether molten lava, ice, methane, etc.

 

- Different starbase layouts depending on economy type (industrial, tourism, etc)

 

- New starbase models

 

- With the introduction of capital ships, capital shipyard docking bays

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A few more things from this morning's stream (which i viewed at 144 p to conserve phone data:p!)

 

-- new environments based on variants of CQC arenas, and capital ship shipyards

 

-- instantaneous ship transfer, with cost according to distance and ship value

 

-- module storage and transfe, similar to ships above

 

-- neutron stars and white dwarves have energetic jets, that you can fly through to supercharge your FSD for a single super jump, but very hazardous... also, they look really pretty!

 

-- before hyperspace, you see the security and status of the target system as you charge up, and can see the destination star getting closer and closer as you travel through hyperspace

 

-- if you zoom into planets in the system map, you can see the real surface rather than a grid! 

 

the youtube playlist is here

 

ETA: 

 

-- shady contact in low security systems that will let you pay off fines or cash in bounty vouchers for anywhere in the galaxy for maybe 20% cut

 

-- ship kits for asp, viper mk iii, vulture and python, paint jobs for SRVs, wire frame paint jobs for asp, python, anaconda, viper

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With the recent discovery of the rocky planet around Alpha proxima, I would love to see updates to planetary surfaces where you get hot and icy tidally locked "eyeball" planets.

 

Material for when they make water worlds landable, I suppose.

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